The 35th Annual Hunger League
by Steele S. Publishing Company
Summary: After losing the war, Japan has fallen under Unovan rule. The price of training for the locals and war prisoners rises ever further than before: each step as a trainer gains another entry slip for the Hunger League. 24 tributes and their sole Pokemon enter. One leaves.
1. And May the Crits be Ever in Your Favor

**60…**

I clutched the red and white sphere in my hands so hard that I was afraid the low-quality tin orb would break. My last salvation, my last chance at survival, was my well-trained second in command: a positively non-threatening Butterfree.

I knew the risks when I signed up as a trainer: One entry for your license and starter, one for each capture, two for a first evolution, and three for a second. Another for every year as a trainer corresponding to how many years you had been training, and a number of slips corresponding to the order of badges, and which ones you had. All in all, I had been training since I was ten, the legal age, and was now fifteen. Fifteen being the number of entries made automatically for me. A full team of six, plus a seventh - my starter - that was killed during my first year. Twenty-one entries total. Three of my team evolved twice, two of them once, and the third was un-evolved. Forty chances in thousands for my region.

My vice, however, was badges: I had foolishly collected all eight for my region. One for the first badge, two for the second… An extra thirty-six entries. Compared to some of the stronger trainers here, seventy-six slips was nothing. Then again, I haven't even added up the tesserae that my family had collected in my name over the years, which were of an unknown number and one entry per person. I looked over at the Kanto tributes who were limbering up. Their hundreds of entries seemed almost on purpose judging by their cool, collected demeanor as they watched the clock.

**45, 44, 43…**

I had wasted the first fifteen seconds of the game tallying up how many times I had been entered! What was I doing? I looked towards the Cornucopia, trying to focus on a potential target. Right in front of me on the scorched earth was a large knife in a sheath. It was useless for any trainer who packed a pokémon with claws, but would be priceless for me. Slink would be great for near-endless rope, but unable to cut anything fast. I had been told by my mentor that I should refrain from releasing the delicate bug until I was deep within the woods, that the Butterfree would be torn to bits in seconds and I would be left without valuable rope, poisons, and the occasional sleep aid.

I had already decided that he would come out immediately. I wanted that knife, but there was a small box of a half-dozen Ultra Balls in a transparent plastic sack only a few yards ahead of it. The sack was valuable, but the Ultra Balls would be worth their weight in gold. Catching game was the first thing any trainer thought of, but I could train something up as a team-mate quickly enough with Slink's slight psychic coaching. Many tributes would bring in psychics for trainer harassment, but very few thought of them for training. I had only seen three tributes in my life who trained up small teams during the league, but two of them won outright. The third was in the final eight.

**13, 12, 11…**

I caught myself drifting off again, and forced myself to watch the clock. I was practically vibrating out of my shoes at this point, trying to find anything to distract myself. The knife. The sack. The Ultra Balls. I shifted my weight forwards, ready to run. Even if I just got the knife, I would be in great shape. I could grab it, bolt for the caves that dotted the cliffs-

My thoughts were interrupted by an explosion almost opposite me. Someone had released their pokémon just a moment too soon. As most of the other trainers turned to face the explosion, I was able to focus on the clock.

**2, 1, 0**

And just like that, the 35th Annual Hunger League had begun.

I took off for the bag, pressing the button on my pokéball and screaming, "knife!" A click of mandibles was all I needed to know that Slink understood. I slid to a halt next to the clear plastic bag, grabbed it, and bolted. Before I could build up decent speed a vine caught my legs and threw me on to the ground. The rocky dust was sucked in to my lungs as I gasped for breath, feeling myself being hauled backwards for a short moment before the vines went slack. I made sure to look back for a brief instant to see what had happened: an Ivysaur was being barbecued by a Magmar.

Its trainer was elsewhere in the fray, but the pokémon locked eyes with me for a brief moment. It looked back at the fray, then to me, and gave a short nod. My first stroke of luck in a very long time. I nodded back, scrambling to my feet and making for the cliff face as quick as my feet could carry me. I threw the sack on to my back, and Slink alighted there, just as planned. A thick haze of purple powder trailed behind us as we retreated. Besides a poorly aimed Ice Beam that caused goose bumps to scramble up my arm and a knife that Slink had to yank me to the left to avoid, we were otherwise uninterrupted by the fray behind us.

Twenty-four competitors, three from each major region, were fleeing deeper in to the canyon-based arena as I was. Or murdering each other behind me. All could have been anywhere from ten to eighteen years old, but the youngest this year was decently old at fourteen. A boy, a girl, and a wildcard taken from whatever entries were left over. My legs kept good rhythm underneath me as I ran over this useless information in my head. One trainer-pokémon team was already eliminated due to their false start. Which meant I had twenty-two other trainers and their pokémon to contend with, avoid, trick, trap, and hopefully kill.

Strangely, ever since my name had been pulled and I had decided against the existence of a God, I lost all qualms against murder. My transformation - my evolution - was triggered by the Reaping. The choice of Slink had been deliberate. I realized how very important rope was immediately, as my mentor could not stress enough how important it would be to find a Caterpie, Bellsprout, or anything else that could spit string or grow vines. Slink could do the former, and had the bonus of poisons, sedatives, and some psychic prowess. He had even impressed the Gamekeepers when he demonstrated the ability to save me from a potentially lethal fall by clinging to my back and flapping as hard as he could. We had made out way to the roof of the twenty-foot room and jumped to the laughter and applause of the Gamekeepers. This, along with the our clever - but not so unique - poison trail had earned me a six out of eight, a fantastic score. In short: he was not a killing machine, but had every piece necessary to make one.

Another Ice Beam crackled by my ear and snapped me back to reality just before I toppled over the edge of the cliff.

There was no stopping me at this point. I hadn't noticed how close the giant canyon had become. It must have been a quarter mile wide, at least, and caves dotted the higher cliff face on the other side. The rocks were many different earthy tones in dozens of layers leading down the canyon, and a powerful river surged along its bottom, hewing the arena ever deeper. If it weren't for my imminent death, the canyon would be very pretty. It was almost like a painting. The arenas were always things of dangerous beauty, but I pulled myself away from the sight long enough to spin around and throw my hands out towards the wall moments before I slid in to oblivion.

The yell of fear that issued from my lips was horribly loud, but I felt Slink grab on and pump his wings as hard as he could. I felt my descent slow considerably, but my hands were already torn up from the brief seconds of scrabbling at the canyon's edge. I would survive this, though. The adrenaline was already numbing up my hands as I kicked my feet in to the rocks, begging for purchase. I was lucky that my growth had been stunted; my light form found a place to cling easily. I scrunched my eyes up tight, not daring to look down. Slink, however, was tugging at my back. He wanted me to look. At what? My death? One last beautiful sight before I die?

I opened my eyes, unfortunately looking straight down through my arms. To my great surprise, however, there was an outcropping probably twenty yards below me. The cannons wouldn't sound until the bloodbath was over. Unless they counted the bodies I would wind up buying a whole afternoon of time. They all must have thought that I had plummeted to my death. I recuctantly released my bloody grip from the cliff. Slink flapped hard until we landed on the outcropping with a thump.

"Good job, Slink," I congratulated my bug softly, reaching out a bloodied hand to pet him. I hesitated, noticing the brownish blood dripping down my wrist for half a second before Slink blasted his silk over my palms. It was a technique we had practiced, and one our mentor had coined: sticky string-shot gloves. In seconds, and with a fair bit of stinging, a thick pair of mittens had been sprayed over my hands. I looked at them for a moment. Something was wrong. My hands were terribly itchy underneath them. "Can you take these off? It doesn't feel right."

Slink cocked his head, but landed on my outstretched arm and began to pull at the silk. In seconds, I realized why my hands itched. The insides of the mitts were covered in blood, dirt, and easily a dozen shards of rock. When I looked at my hands, however, the injuries seemed very clean. No deep cuts, just some scraping. Healthy red blood began to seep back out. I nodded to Slink who misted on a fresher, thinner coat. As I flexed my fingers and turned my hands, I took a moment to recap the last few minutes of my life.

I was alive, first of all. That was a very good sign.

My wounds were minimal, cleaned, and bandaged. My luck had been phenomenal: some strange force had stayed the Magmar's fiery attacks and left me a ledge to perch on.

I had a knife, a bag, and a box of Ultra Balls. Checking the bag on my back confirmed this. I popped the box open and dumped the contents in to the bag, tossing the cardboard box and bits of plastic in to the faint breeze. I had to shake a particularly clingy bit of wrapping off my sticky white gloves.

My stylist had equipped me with my basic travelling get-up: brown jeans, stiff black hiking boots, a desert camouflage vest and a white t-shirt (the front of which was already dirty). Completing the outfit was a belt that held up my pants - which I had a feeling would be useful in a few days' time as a tourniquet or a noose - and a bandoleer imbedded with six magnetic discs. I took Slink's Pokéball and stuck it to the topmost 'holster' where the powerful magnet might as well have soldered it on. As an afterthought, I fished the sheathed knife out of my bag to examine it. It was more of a tool than a weapon: the back was serrated, the tip was hooked suspiciously like a bottle opener, and the butt of the blade contained a compass. It was better than I could have hoped, though. It went directly on to my belt.

It was a miracle that I survived this long, to be honest. I wondered who else would survive as I took a seat. The three trainers from the Kanto region would survive, of course. They trained hard and volunteered at eighteen if they hadn't been reaped by then. One of them had stuck out to me in training: a lithe and fit young man with an agile Squirtle who had spent most of their training days on obstacle courses. The Sinnoh region had offered up a trainer with a Mamoswine that had a huge amount of fear factor to it. My fellow Johto trainers had nicknamed me 'wildcard' due to my odd selection and that I was, well, the wildcard tribute. They seemed sociable enough in training. The Magmar suddenly clicked in to place: the boy tribute had owned him. Maybe they hoped an alliance could form, or maybe we made an alliance that I couldn't honestly remember. I couldn't recall Hoenn's tributes at all.

The lesser regions all had difficult to pronounce names that had yet to be Americanized after the dust from the war had settled. The few natives who survived were forced to care for the prisoners that came soon after. Japan became to Unova what Australia had been for England: a place to throw traitors, thieves, and killers. And as their punishment, the League was formed. Co-existing with the already standing Pokémon League, the Hunger League was meant to punish what used to be Japan's largest and most frivolous industry. If you wanted to be a trainer, you would run the risk of competing. But it could all be avoided if you did as you were told, went to school, and contributed to society in a way that Unova found useful. Training was an extravagance that was exclusively Unovan now. Everyone else ran the risk of paying the ultimate price.

I was shook from my thoughts sometime later by cannon fire. It struck me as having happened almost too quickly. It couldn't have been more than fifteen minutes. One shot, two, three, four, five, six… Six shots? Only six had died in the blood bath? Well, five, technically. The first death had happened right before the League began. There were eighteen rowdy competitors left, including myself. And who knows how many pokémon. The cannons had fired a moment too soon, however, as another competitor made the same mistake I did.

A Pikachu tumbled in to the abyss in front of me, shortly followed by a trainer. She slammed on to my ledge and was carried by the momentum over the lip of it. Her hands found purchase at the last possible second, leaving her dangling as I had been moments before. The screams of the small rodent echoed through the wide canyon before they were silenced by a dull thump on a much lower ledge.

I looked at the fingers poking over the edge. The woman grunted and groaned as she tried to pull herself up. I cautiously moved towards her, careful not to get too close to her hands. She could reach out, grab my leg, pull me over, haul herself up, and I would be dead. She had hit the ledge pretty hard, though. Maybe she was still too dazed, or injured. We locked eyes for a brief moment. Simple and brown, but pretty. I realized that I was looking at the fourteen-year-old who had been reaped from one of the lower regions. The youngest in the tournament. Her ashen skin was pale with fear, her knuckles completely white on the ledge, and her life was completely in my hands.

"Help me," she groaned, her feet trying in vain to find purchase beneath her, "please…"


	2. The Cornucopia

There was a brief moment where I couldn't decide what to do. Slink poked his head over my shoulder to see the girl better. Sweat was pouring down her face, her eyes were wide, her fingers were slipping on the rock.

There was a bag on her back, which could serve useful. But her Pikachu had just plummeted to its death, with its trainer oh so very close behind. All I would have to do is stomp on her fingers and watch her tumble. Not even that; she would give away soon enough. I made the unfortunate mistake of locking eyes with her. Her fear surged in to me stronger than any other emotion I'd ever felt before. Her life was at my mercy, completely in my hands.

A short scream snapped me out of my daze as she slid a few inches further over the ledge. My hands snapped down unconsciously and wrapped around her wrists. Slink flitted down to help me, landing on her back and pumping his wings. She came up and over the edge easily and collapsed in to my arms. We sat there for a moment, dazed with what just happened. I was barely aware of her wrapping her arms around me as she began to sob.

I could have eliminated this threat, this potential murderer, very easily. Even now she could push me over the ledge and be done with it. However, something told me she wouldn't. Maybe it's the way her entire body was trembling with fear, or how she winced as I returned her embrace. She wasn't a killer. And apparently neither was I. Slink, still on her back, gave me his usual blank, bug-eyed expression.

"Free-free," he chirped, making the girl jump in my arms. But years of training with him allowed the basic understanding of his words: "Good job." I gave him a small, genuine smile

We sat like this for at least an hour. She must have been afraid of heights, or simply mourning the loss of her partner. The sound of canon fire is what finally roused us to move: Two shots. Eight downed trainers total. I pulled her to her feet, but I still had to hold her steady. Her knees were shaking hard enough to knock together. She was definitely afraid of heights.

"We can go back up and check the Cornucopia," I pointed upwards to the canyon's edge, which was no more than thirty yards above us, "or further down and see-"

"Up," she grunted, wiping the dust and minimal, flaking blood from her hands before she planted them firmly against the rock face. Slink, however, had a much better idea. He flew up the side of the canyon until he reached the edge, disappeared over it for a moment, then returned with a thick rope of silk trailing from his mouth. I noticed something as he flitted down the cliff face, however: His silk was thinning out the closer he got to us. I felt stupid for thinking that his supplies would be limitless, but he seemed to have just enough to end the rope within arm's reach.

He looked visibly drained as he took up his position on my back, his tiny arms clinging tightly to my bag. The girl very carefully slipped in front of me and grabbed the rope. With one hard tug, she deemed it safe to climb. And climb she did: by the time I realized how fast she was going she was nearly half-way up.

There was only one small hiccup in our ascent: a particularly strong breeze shook my new friend like a leaf. However we manage to make our way back to the solid, open, rocky ground with little issue. The Cornucopia was a fair distance away from us, but completely deserted, save for what looked like a large furry boulder. It took me a moment to realize that I was looking at the rear end of a Mamoswine. Within the following moments I realized that we were completely exposed. I looked back to the girl now with me. There was a brief second where I wanted to shove her back over the edge, but it was gone as soon as it came. I guess I had an ally now.

"We have to move," I hissed as I pushed her ahead of me, "go for the cornucopia, Slink and I need to powder trail the rear. Go!" And with that, we made the jog back towards the center of the arena. What should have been a major blood shedding seemed to have been only a small scuffle. The first thing I noticed was the charred remains of the Ivysaur who had attempted to snare me earlier. As we passed it, I hesitated, remembering the feeling of the vine around my leg and the sheer dread of near death.

I pressed on, taking a brief moment to examine every casualty I passed: a small Growlithe with a large wound in its neck; the slimy skin of the strange Unovan frog I saw in training; the incredibly sad sight of a Togetic who was brutally disemboweled and only barely breathing. It was a miracle it had survived this long, to be honest. Slink floated over and coated it in a thick layer of sleep powder at my request. The hovercrafts must have cleaned up the human remains, however. All that was left were large pools of blood where competitors must have bled out.

The most disturbing part of the scene, however, was the lack of other tributes. Usually the cornucopia would be happily occupied by the careers, or else guarded. Now all that guarded the weapons and supplies was the large Mamoswine.

"Is he injured?" I cautiously approached the mass of fur as I looked for an answer to my ally's question. The beast was breathing, that much was obvious. Its entire body rose and fell in slow waves, the icy tusks frosting the ground where they lay. Its sleeping position didn't look exactly ideal, however, which could be easily explained by the large dart sticking out of the side of its face.

A hissing came from the side of the Mamoswine I couldn't see, quickly followed by a green lizard crawling around the side of the icy beast. The Grovyle's yellow eyes narrowed at me as its warning continued. I knew its sharp claws could end me in a heartbeat, so I withdrew closer to the cornucopia and away from the two trainer-less pokémon.

"There's not much," whispered the girl as she loaded her belt and magnetic bandolier with a seemingly random assortment of weapons: a half-dozen throwing knives, a hunting knife, five discarded arrows, and a machete. I helped her stuff a small medical kit and several bags of dried fruit in to a larger bag containing a cooking set, a box of matches, a flint-and-steel fire starter, and several MREs (Meal - Ready to Eat). The pickings were surprisingly good for what little was left. I even found a grappling hook, sans rope, along with a short sword before I found a small box tucked in to a corner. My fingers were just about to touch it when the lizard behind us began to hiss.

"Well, well, well!" The booming voice was unmistakable. One of the Hoenn careers, out on his own and looking for blood, called brazenly across the rocky field. A hulking metal behemoth was marching next to him, the setting sun glinting off the metal plates, the glare momentarily blocking out its bloodied maw. Aggron were truly terrifying creatures.

"It looks like the great Zarroma's going to be getting all of the screen time for tonight's show!" In the back of my head, where my fear hadn't quite penetrated, I could almost hear the applause. He was definitely a stunning enough subject: broad, muscular, and already soaked in red. A hand reached up and ran over his bare dome, leaving a trail of his victim's blood, and he handled the claymore in his other hand as if it were made of wood.

"Run!" My ally's escape was cut short when the Aggron stomped on the ground, sending a pillar of earth erupting beneath her. She was thrown several feet in to the air and, almost theatrically, on to the top of the cornucopia. Zarroma stopped for a moment, marveling at the sight, then doubled over laughing. I took it as my cue to move. My brain began to wrack over the different typings as my feet propelled me towards my objective. The Grovyle was too busy focusing on the other lizard to care when I grabbed the dart on the Mamoswine's face. With a yank, the needle came free. The giant nose crumpled in front of me as its eyes wrinkled in pain.

"No, wake up! Wake up!" I gave the face a hard slap, much more terrified of the career than the pokémon I was agitating. Slink took off from his perch, preferring to circle a few yards above us. A shaft of earth beneath me tossed me on to my back. Fear began to course fresh through my veins. I scrambled on to my feet and made my way around the far side of the Mamoswine.

The bad news was that the Aggron had decided to take my path. The good news came in the form of a green, screeching blur that hit the lizard with surprising force. The beast stumbled as I made my way around it, leaping over its thrashing tail and taking a few steps towards a thin forest before there was a shriek from behind me. Zarroma was going for the girl.

I turned.

I turned back.

I turned again.

With a groan, I pulled the short sword from my belt and charged back after the hulking man. All I needed was one good slash. My Butterfree seemed to be distracted by the pokémon battle, so I was going in solo. I raised the sword to my side and brought it around as fast as I could. The tribute spun around and smacked it from my hands with ease. His laughter boomed through the air again as he raised his blade.

The green blur struck again, tearing across Zarroma's stomach before sliding to a halt to his left. One of the Grovyle's claws was bent and bleeding, but the other was bloodied. I chanced a glance at the Aggron, ecstatic to find him twitching and sluggish. He was inhaling plenty of Slink's purple powder as the Butterfree danced mere feet away from his aggressor. I was surprised that the Aggron wasn't belching flames or lightning, but it must have known how flammable the thick coat of powder it was covered in was.

I turned back to Zarroma just in time to see his sword lop off the Grovyle's bad arm. I leapt at the man before I could think what to do. My right hand found purchase around his shoulders, and my left was still white-knuckled around the large tranquilizer dart as I rammed it in to the base of his skull, straight up. I pounded it in as deep as I could with the heel of my palm as the baffled competitor struggled to free himself from my grasp. His hands arched towards his back, twitching and struggling to try and reach me. Then he began to convulse, and I released him to fall to the ground. I didn't take the time to make sure he was dead - the cannon would tell me that - and span around to see how Slink was faring.

The Aggron had been knocked out, but not by Slink. I must not have noticed the Mamoswine's return to consciousness, but now it was impossible not to. His foot came down over the lizard's chest hard. A crunch and a spurt of blood from the beasts mouth told me that it was now a late Aggron.

The ninth cannon rang out in the distance as the Mamoswine and I stared each other down. A weak hiss from behind reminded me that I was now pinned between two feral, angry, grieving pokémon. Slink, however, began to chatter to them as quickly as he could. I chanced turning to see the Grovyle. He was sitting on his haunches, his good claw pressing hopelessly over the stub that was his arm. I beckoned Slink over with a snap of my fingers and slowly approached the green gecko. It hissed at me weakly, but Slink alighted on my arm and knew exactly what I wanted. As he spun out a meager amount of his silk in to a rope in my hands, I couldn't help but notice that he was missing an antenna.

"I can help," I muttered, "just trust me, ok? An enemy of an enemy…" I dropped the sentence as the Grovyle stuck his stub straight out, perfectly submissive. I quickly tied off the stump a few inches above the wound. Slink clambered down to mist on as thick of a bandage as he could. It wasn't much.

"I can help, too," offered the girl from the top of the cornucopia, "I know a lot about herbs and such. I could make him something for the pain, at least." She looked wistfully off towards the thin woods in the opposite direction of the canyon.

"Well, what do you say?" The Grovyle seemed to mull over my words for a moment, before scampering off towards something in the wreckage of the cornucopia. He came back a few seconds later, dragging a severed arm behind him. I didn't realize the meaning of the offering until he prodded the tightly closed fist with his nose. It was a pokéball. His pokéball. As I pried the sphere from the rigor mortis riddled fingers, I couldn't help but smile. What the Grovyle took as reassuring was actually my reaction to the morbid sense of coincidence. 

I returned him and made sure Slink was on my back. Turning to the Mamoswine, I offered, "would you like to come, too?"

The Mamoswine snorted, turned, and settled himself in to the small cavern of the cornucopia with a thud. At least the remaining supplies - and that alluring little box - would remain undisturbed for a good, long time.


	3. To Mend a Wound

We bolted for the woods. They were thin and offered very little in the means of protection, but my ally's promise of healing herbs for the Grovyle was too good to pass up. She was slightly taller than me, and a fair bit faster. Her long, thin legs made short work of the flat expanse leading up to the woods. Slink clicked in my ear, irritated with our pace and newfound luggage. I could feel him bobbing around on the large bag on my back. I looked back at the powder trail we were leaving. Not only was it thinner, but it was also golden. He had switched over to Stun Spore, a smart choice. A sick predator could still hunt, but a paralyzed one would be hard pressed to continue.

"Do not stop at the tree line!" My ally danced through the first few trees without losing any pep in her step. Her region must have been heavily wooded. Thankfully, Johto was fairly green as well. I wasn't nearly as fast as she was, but I was able to keep up. I double-checked the new Pokéball on my bandolier. Even in the device he was still losing blood. I figured, from a similar instance involving a friend's fearless Croconaw and his missing tail, the gecko might have an hour or so before it was beyond hope. We needed to either force an evolution or cauterize the wound. Building a fire, however, meant giving away out position. Not to mention we had no fire pokémon to speed up the process. The merciful Magmar sprung in to my mind. Maybe his trainer, the Boy of the Johto Region, might be willing to form an alliance? But where would we find him?

The trees were all very tall and fairly far apart. Pine, fir, spruce, I couldn't rightly tell without stopping to look. The arena wasn't made to be ecologically accurate, it was made to be pretty. And often dangerous. The tension was thick as we made our way deeper, but there was no obvious sign of danger save for a small pack of Mightyena far to our right. Thankfully they were already on the trail of some other prey. Some minutes after we saw them a canon boomed. It was a little obvious what had happened.

As we pressed on we were hit by a sudden shift in climate: the mild heat of the cornucopia was being replaced by a stinging cold. Our breath was becoming visible in front of our faces and it wasn't long before we saw patches of snow.

"We have to stop," the girl spoke. I didn't object. "if we keep going, any useful plants are going to be covered in snow."

"Good point." With that, we began to search for plants. Well, she began to search for plants. I removed the plastic sack from my back, emptied the Ultra Balls in to my pockets, gave half of them to my ally ("just in case"), and began to pack the plastic full of snow from the closest white snow bank I could find. I took the small, full bag and jammed it under my shirt with a shiver. I was still hot from running, but this would quickly cool me down and slake my thirst. "Have you found anything yet," I called.

"Not much," she called back, "and it is getting dark. We have to make a fire and burn it shut."

"Everyone will know where we are, though," I contested, "we'd be dead in minutes!"

"The cold will kill us before someone else does," she barked, bending over to yank some roots out of the ground. She looked them over for a second, rubbed them between her fingers, then groaned. "None of this is even edible!"

"At least we have plenty of water." I rubbed where the plastic bag was pressing against my stomach. I could feel my empty stomach growling even through the slushy sack. She gave my abdomen an incredulous look. "We can go a month without food, or something like that," I spoke, filling the silence, "but only three days without water."

"Would you be quiet!" I balked at her tone as I pulled the shivering Butterfree from my back. I rubbed him down in an effort to warm him up. Slink's lone antenna twitched to my rear. I knew something was bothering him. He attempted to wriggle out of my hands but I held him close, careful not to touch his wings.

"What is it?" Slink's antenna wriggled in response, pointing behind me, sensing the air. He began to chatter away in my ear, rattling off what he could feel behind us. According to him the forest was practically alive. Many little bodies hidden in the snow, cold but definitely alive. Occasionally he would say something I hadn't heard before. He had a strange way of compressing the types together if something was more than two.

"Freeb, freeb," he repeated, tugging to get himself free. It took me a minute to figure out what it was, but I eventually responded.

"Ice plants?" He nodded and I let him go. Ice wasn't good for him, but plants usually had sap. He loved sap. If he felt as if he could freely approach them, who was I to question his judgment? I turned to face where he had flitted off to and saw exactly what he meant. Probably a half-dozen stout little… trees had waddled out of the snow banks.

Followed by one really big one.

Slink, however, wasn't scared in the slightest. It flitted a safe distance from the large, white and green biped, occasionally letting out a click or a hiss. The thing would just as occasionally grunt in response, short phrases that were hard to catch from this distance and impossible to decipher. To say that my ally and I froze would be incredibly accurate; the longer we stood there the colder we became. The icy being's appearance seemed to summon a fair amount of snow with it.

"What do we do," the girl asked. The beast's purple eyes fixed on her immediately. Slink began to buzz as the beast began to move. The abominable thing winced at this, backing away from the two of us before turning to trudge away. Slink was deceptively strong. He had been the team's backbone through the last seven gyms we faced, after all. The smaller trees followed the bigger one as they marched deeper in to the snowy arena, away from us.

"Thank-you, Slink!" I whispered as he fluttered back to us. However, even with the icy pokémon marching in the opposite direction, we were still very cold and very much exposed. I counted my blessings every second that we were alive. Another one became apparent as soon as I looked up at the gently falling snow: the sky was grey and only getting darker. There would be a small amount of time before sundown where the smoke from a fire would be borderline invisible. And anyone with a brain would be trying to huddle up next to a fire in this weather. My ally appeared next to me, a fistful of various herbs in each hand.

"I can not do much with these besides eat them," she muttered, looking at the sky, "do you think we could chance a fire?"

"I was just about to ask," I grinned. We set about gathering up every spare bit of dead, dry-ish wood near us. The snow wasn't helping, but we had a fairly decent pile soon enough. Slink had taken to sitting on my back and occasionally buzzing at anything he found intimidating. or possibly just buzzing to stay warm. Within a half hour we had found and split enough fuel to start up a small fire. As soon as it was going strong I placed my sword in to the very heart of the coals. Cauterization would be the only way a this point. The Grovyle had to stay in its pokéball as long as I could stand to keep him there. His time was almost up, anyways. Then again, plants were fairly hardy and the bandage was strong. We had to try, at least. We. I was already thinking like a team player.

"You know, I never got your name," I asked, pulling out the sword a bit to examine the blade. It was beginning to glow a deep red, but I knew it could be much hotter. She snorted at me from across the flames, glaring in to the woods.

"We are going to be dead in a few days," she replied curtly, "what does it matter?" I deflated slightly. She had a point. Even if I was from one of the larger regions, we weren't exactly a career region. I had no idea what region she was from. Judging by her accent and her choice of Pikachu it must have been one of the underdeveloped regions. She had a badge pinned to her vest, though, so she must have made it to at least one gym. I looked down at my own badge. The Rising Badge was pinned right over my heart and shimmered in the roaring flames. Each tribute was required to bring in their highest-earned badge with them as a basic show of power. There was also talk that the higher level of badge you had, the easier it would be to tame pokémon in the arena. Trainers generally acknowledged that that was bullshit. Badges were just pretty little bits of metal and gemstones.

"Well, what badge is that, then," I replied. She looked down at her badge, a dingy little grey-blue square.

"The 'who cares' badge," she grumbled, "is that sword ready?"

"If you're so set on the idea that you're dying, why hide anything?" I frowned and checked the blade again. It seemed to be the same color as before. "We'll be dead before morning. Might as well share." That had come out a little meaner than I intended it to, but it got a response.

"It is the Trust Badge," she forced out, "we had to blindfold our pokémon for the battle and they had to trust our commands. It was only the third gym."

"Wow, isn't that-"

"Shut up, what is your badge?" I looked down at the black dragon head on my vest.

"The Rising Badge. The gym was filled with lava, and we had to fight Lance's cousin or something like that. It was pretty intense." She looked up at me with slight curiosity.

"What number is it?"

"Eight," I admitted. She let out a low whistle in response. "We'd just got it, too. Slink and I knew that if we could dodge this year's Reaping we would have plenty of time to train up and take on the Elite Four."

"Well, that turned out well." That one stung a bit. "So, what am I going to call you, then?"

"Why should I tell you my name if you won't tell me yours?" I threw another few sticks on to the fire as Slink buzzed on my back. A shuffling behind me told me that one of the small trees had gotten too close, but I turned to look just to be sure. A chill ran up my spine as a pair of purple eyes locked with mine. They quickly turned away as Slink kept up his Bug Buzz. I had no idea how close the thing had gotten and was insanely thankful for my partner. I disturbed him for a moment to pull the bag from my back when my partner finally spoke up.

"Well, you could call me Shikoku," she offered as I pulled out two of the MREs and the cooking supplies, "and you are Johto, right?"

"That's boring," I replied, pulling out the crackers from each package. I pulled them open and handed them to my gleeful partner. The buzzing was replaced by crunching as I pulled the bag filled with water out from under my shirt, continuing, "you can just call me Wildcard. Everyone did in training, cause of the Butterfree and all."

"I can deal with that, Wildcard," she nodded, chewing on one of the herbs she had found earlier, "if you promise to tell me your name when we hit the final eight." 

"Deal. So what am I calling you?"

"Uhm," she mulled the idea over for a moment, then smiled, "Greens." She waved the handful of herbs in her hand as I laughed.

"Fine, Greens it is." We fell in to decidedly more casual conversations after this. I prepared the MREs as we passed the time by talking about whatever the hell we felt like. I guess the knowledge of your nearly certain doom can open someone up. We talked about people we had dated, sexual experiences, deaths in our team and families, the best and worst battles we had ever participated in. Before we knew it, it was getting fairly dark and we were wolfing down out small meals of chicken stew and chili. The skies cleared without us noticing, and it took the blare of the Unovan anthem to snap us back to reality.

"Oh, shit," I hissed, pressing the button on the second pokéball on my bandolier. A woozy and surprised Grovyle appeared. His the once white bandage was now red with blood. We had to act fast as the music still trumpeted through the arena. "Watch who died today, I want to know who is left," I shouted, chancing a look at the sky. The first face had appeared: Zarroma, with a picture of his Aggron next to him. I turned back to the Grovyle and began to gently remove his bandage.

"Listen to me," I spoke, looking the Grovyle dead in the eyes to avoid the sight of the coagulated stump, "this is going to hurt, okay? This is going to hurt a _lot_. But we need to do this."

"Boy from Hoenn and his Aggron, Girl from Hoenn," Greens rattled off as the faces appeared. I didn't have much time. I pulled the blade from the fire. It was nearly white hot now and the look on the lizard's face was as if I had just slapped it.

"Trust me, ok? This is your one chance," I grabbed a piece of spare wood and offered it to the grass pokemon. I hadn't even thought of that: Grovyle were grass-types. This was going to be awful. He hesitated for a moment, looked me in the eyes again, then crammed the small log in to his mouth.

"Boy from Sinnoh, Wildcard girl from Sinnoh and her Floatzel," Greens looked at us briefly, incredibly terrified at how loud everything was becoming. I could barely notice Slink begin to buzz over the anthem.

"On three, okay?" The Grovyle nodded as I grabbed the stub of his arm with one hand, the short sword ready in the other.

"Girl from Tōhoku and her Growlithe."

"One." I stripped the wound.

" Girl from Chūbu and a Palpitoad, Wildcard girl from Chūbu."

"Two." I smeared away the coagulated blood.

"Boy Chūgoku, girl Chūgoku, Wildcard girl Chūgoku and-"

"Three!"

The hot blade hit the flesh as the anthem died. The Grovyle gave a muffled shriek, twisting and writhing as the stink of burning flesh and sap began to issue from the hissing stump. I held him steady. The log fell out of his mouth and his screams of pain rang through the suddenly quiet woods. Greens had begun to scream as well, either in response to the Grovyle or to something I couldn't see. Slink was buzzing as hard as he could. A roar came from behind us. The Grovyle I was basically soldering shut went limp in my hand. I removed the blade and saw that there was no more blood, only charred flesh.

More blood filled my vision as an angry roar came from behind me. Greens' shrieking and Slinks' buzzing cued me in to their survival, but what I turned to see was almost just as terrifying.

The monstrous snowy beast was pinning something to the tree next to me in one of his great green hands. It was the mangled, crushed body of one of the competitors. His legs squirmed feebly. A bow in one hand slapping at the bloodied paw, the other hand weakly stabbing an arrow at the fingers. The beast's other paw came around, grabbed the poor boy's head, and pulled. His spine and most of his stomach followed his head as it parted company with his shoulders. A cannon rang out through the night. More shrieking joined the commotion as a great scaly bird dropped down from one of the trees and began to claw at the snowy beast. It was very hard to hold down my recent meal as I readied the still red hot sword.

On the one hand, the thing had just saved us. On the other, it was definitely going to kill us next. I stood myself up to see it had slapped the bird to the ground and pinned it by its tail. It had turned its back to me. Another scenario where I had just one shot. I stumbled up its tail, grabbed one of the green tree-like protrusions from its back, and plunged the red-hot blade right between its shoulders. It was almost horrifying how naturally the act came to me. The beast roared, his hands mimicking what Zarroma had attempted to do not an hour earlier. However, it was far from dead. His hand found my arm and dragged me off, tossing me in to a snow bank. I heard Greens shouting orders to something as I struggled to pull myself out. 

"Use a rock attack! Please!" I pulled myself from the snow to see the bird screeching at the twitching snow fiend, scooping a handful of rocks from the ground and throwing them as hard as it could. The thing groaned and belched out a thick stream of ice in response.

"Fire?" The bird spluttered through the frost, unable to do anything. I kept my distance, looking for Slink. He had the same idea as me and was perched high in a tree, buzzing madly. I scrambled up after him. "Fighting!"

That was the magic word. A ball of blue energy blew the arm of the monster clean off. Sticky, sappy blood spewed freely from the open wound. Another followed, blasting it backwards in to the fire pit. The short sword must have been driven all the way through its heart when it landed, because with one last feeble lurch it fell still.

Greens threw an Ultra Ball at the bird without thinking, and it made an odd noise as it connected. The Ultra Ball settled almost immediately, and the bird was in her possession.

She took one look at the carnage, doubled over, and began to puke.


	4. Three's Company

We were long clear of the night's wreckage by the time dawn finally broke. We had decided to hug the snowline and make our way towards the canyon again. Pokémon could often make short work of most terrain, but besides the Skarmory I had seen in training, Slink, and the strange, feathery lizard-bird Greens has just captured, there didn't seem to be anything particularly good at climbing down things. Greens could fly down, and I would rappel down, and we would regroup… somewhere.

"Look," I said, some time later. The sun was steadily rising, erasing the shadows from the canyon's bed. I pointed out towards a large bend in the river which isolated all but a small circle of land. "You and your thing-"

"Archeops," Greens corrected.

"You and your Archeops need to bond. Nothing better than flying." She looked at me, her face completely pale. "You heard me. Slink and I will be fine, he's had plenty of water and food, we can rappel down. You'll beat me there by an hour or so, at least," I hesitantly looked over the edge, reached my hand over my shoulder and rubbed the bug on my back. He clicked contentedly.

* * *

><p>"You are kidding, right?" I raised a brow at Wildcard, who simply shrugged and pulled a length of silk from Slink's mouth. They had anchored it to a tree and were over the edge of the chasm before I could even argue against it. The Ultra Ball in my hand suddenly felt very heavy. I would have to release a vicious, ancient bird and try to ride it before any of the other tributes found me. Or worse, wild Pokémon. A chill ran up my spine as I remembered the Abomasnow attack from the night before. The man being ripped in two, the beast's arm being blown clear off. The Archeops could very easily do the same to me. But, then again, I had caught it. With trembling fingers, I released the catch on the ball.<p>

The Archeops formed in front of me, looking around frantically for something. It was whimpering, its serpentine head swinging to and fro frantically, very tense. With a pang, I realized it was looking for its trainer.

"Oh, sweetheart," I cooed, taking a tentative step towards it. It locked eyes with me and we both froze. It was going to kill me. It was going to pounce and rip out my throat and I would be just as dead as its trainer and the Abomasnow.

We didn't move for a solid minute. With a gulp, I finally found the courage to speak.

"He's gone," I choked out, feeling tears well up in my eyes and bile well up in my gut, "I'm so sorry. But we can still make it out. We can still live. He would want you to live, right?"

After a tense moment, the ancient bird nodded. A brief rush of relief washed over me as I approached it, reaching a hand out before I got too close. It pressed its smooth head in to my palm, resting there a moment as I made my way closer. I wrapped my arms around its neck and it sat back on its haunches. It took me a moment to get settled in, but as soon as I did I began to hiss to the ancient bird.

"We need to get to the bottom of that canyon, okay boy?" I guessed correctly, as he gave a small squawk of approval before ruffling out his wings. He took a few strides back, much quicker than I had expected him to, and turned to face his little 'runway' of sorts.

I had never moved so fast in my life. My hair snapped back and my lips nearly started flapping in the few seconds of extreme acceleration before the feathery death trap threw himself over the edge of the gaping maw in the ground. We never swooped up as I had expected, only seeming to move from running very fast to gliding very fast. The entire event was a blur up until he began to slow himself down in to wide spirals for our descent to the river. I had been too choked up with fear to scream properly, and yet, there we were. Safe and sound. Life not flashing before my eyes. I hesitantly opened them - as I had slammed them shut due to the speed of the event - and found that I could see the area fairly well. The far side of the canyon was littered with caverns from about three-quarters of the way up, with little cues to what might inhabit them. Many were covered in thick spider webs, some seemed to ooze out a thick haze of purple gas, others a similar haze accompanied by the slick gloss of ice. A few even dribbled out small streams of lava. I found it rather odd that there would be such a high concentration of dangerous pokémon there and not elsewhere in the arena, but there must have been a good reason. As we circled around towards the cliff face we had just embarked from, I saw the familiar outline of Wildcard, Slink's wings giving them a distinct silhouette.

How long would that last? Our alliance was formed due to sheer luck. I was dead to rights, I shouldn't have been saved. And yet there was the career kid, offering me a hand and bringing me back from the brink. We sat there and clung to each other. With a pang of regret and remorse, I thought about the boy I liked back home. The last thing I had done was press a kiss on him. We didn't say anything, he didn't even struggle against it. I knew he hadn't liked me, but I had to do it. A dying wish, I suppose, but-

I screamed. I screamed as loud as I could as I watched a young man with a Skarmory approach Slink's silken anchor. Wildcard looked up just in time to see his rope give way as the metal bird sliced the tree - not even the silk, but the _tree_ - cleanly in half. The two tumbled for a few yards before the Butterfree's frantic wings caught the air and brought them down hard on to a ledge. The Skarmory shoved the tree over the edge as the trainer locked eyes with me. I was too far away to have anything thrown at me, and he didn't have a bow on him, but he pointed at me nonetheless. The Skarmory gave an indignant cry as we spiraled further away and deeper in to the canyon.

Why wasn't he giving chase? He had a bird, he could fly out here and demolish me! Especially a metal bird like Skarmory. Archeops were part rock, we would crumble in no time. I whipped my neck around as we circled to see the man climbing on to his bird and prepping for takeoff just before a brilliant bloom of fire engulfed the both of them. Their screams echoed throughout the canyon as a Magmar lumbered in to view, followed closely by a trainer who looked somewhat familiar. The trainer scrambled off of the bird's back and hit the ground, rolling as his Skarmory began to pump its wings. The Magmar didn't let up as the bird began to melt, faltering in the air as its wings began to glow and droop. There was a huge crash as the tree collided with the ledge Wildcard had landed on, and my eyes snapped down to watch the pair begin to topple again, but a thick stream of white rope caught them fast to the ledge. The flaming, flailing form of the Skarmory missed them by only a foot or so as it flailed down the side of the canyon, flinging bits of molten metal in all directions. It hit the ground with a sickening splat, more liquid than solid, its form oozing out over the ground as it burned. I screamed at this, too. I couldn't help it. Death was terrifying to me…

* * *

><p>It was all I could do not to scream. There was molten metal burning in to my leg. A small patch the size of a coin, glowing hot and angry, the stench of burning hair and flesh filling my nostrils. I gave it a quick swipe with my gloved hand, but that did as much harm as good: most of it was flicked off, while the rest was smeared over a space twice as big.<p>

I had absolutely no idea what had happened. One second, Greens was screaming and my rope had gone slack. Slink had the good sense of preservation to get us on to a ledge, but the tree we had anchored ourselves to smashed it out from underneath us. We had just enough time to set up another line of string shot when the melting… thing fell down past us. I was just happy that Slink hadn't been burnt, and that the worst I got was the small patch on my leg. I could take care of that no problem. It still hurt like a bitch, however.

"Wildcard, that you?"

I knew that voice. It was the other Johto tribute. "Yes!" I looked up to see the familiar Magmar and its trainer looking over the ledge at me. They both gave wide smiles.

"Where are you goin'?" He began to pull a rope out of his bag, and I felt myself grow tense. Before I could argue, he and his Magmar were rappelling down after me. "I thought we were goin' to be partners in this."

"How can I trust you?" He and his Magmar laughed in response to this.

"We've saved your skin twice now," he replied, "if you owe us anythin' - which you do - it's your trust."

I couldn't argue with that logic. I slowed down so that he could catch up to me, waiting for them to pull a knife and cut my rope, or lodge it between my eyes, or anything. What I got was just as surprising: tying the rope to his backpack, he fished a jar of burn heal out of his pocket and slapped a large glob of the salve on to my leg. I gave a sigh of relief as he screwed the lid back on the jar.

"Think you can trust me now, friend?" I gave him a nod as he untied his rope and continued downward. "What about birdie-girlie circlin' us?"

"She's with me, I saved her right after the starting bell."

"See? Karma, my friend. You save her, I save you," his foot slipped on a loose rock and my hand shot out to steady him. He gave a bright grin, "An' when the time comes, you'll save me."

"Or kill you before you get the chance to kill me," the bitter remark came out without too much thought, but instead of the anger I expected, the boy looked at me for a second before giving a small shrug. Good. At least he understood that this was temporary. We began to rappel down the cliff side again. "What happened to you, anyways? With the careers?"

"Yep, left me on guard duty for the night. Took me a big ol' bag of goodies an' bolted," he smiled at this and shifted the large camping bag on his back, "what about you? We figured Zarroma fell off the cliff or somethin', seein' as that's what you and the girlie did an' all."

"He came after us, and I put a tranq dart in his skull."

"Bullshit, we got the tranq gun, an' there were only, like, three shots."

"I pulled it out of the Mamoswine."

He looked at me incredulously as we hit another ledge, pausing for a moment to readjust ourselves as he measured out another hook and length of rope. I gave Slink a sip of water from the plastic sack as he put two and two together.

"No fuckin' way," he muttered, "You killed Zarroma with your bare hands?"

I wanted to say 'I got lucky', but that really wasn't the case. I had killed him, there was no luck, just a Grovyle's assistance and my quick, brutal thinking. The reality of it came crashing down harder than I expected: I had killed a man. After a moment, I nodded. It was all I could do.

We continued down the cliff-side in silence. No canon-fire, no conversation, nothing but my thoughts.

I made an effort to shut them out. Thinking would only get me killed. Instincts. Trust my instincts...


	5. The River

"We made out like bandits."

It was true enough. The pile of weaponry and food we had amassed was actually fairly impressive. The plastic bag had been drained of the pure snow water, but now was repurposed to hold our small supply of Ultra Balls (which, thanks to a contribution from my fellow Johto tribute, was now at a whopping count of eleven). I kept my knife at my hip, as well as the rope-less grappling hook and a hatchet that had been stolen from the careers. It was very sharp, but thankfully sheathed, and hung nicely from the other side of my belt. The Johto boy had a proper dagger strapped to his leg and a spear in his hands, and Greens found a dozen more throwing knives to join the six we found at the cornucopia, along with her machete. We had split the remainder of the items between three backpacks: Everyone had a canteen, at least one MRE, several bags of dried food, a box of matches, and a small medical box filled with bandages and rubbing alcohol. Though each bag had one extra goody with it that couldn't be split.

The first bag had two short swords on either side of it, as well as the five discarded arrows and a length of string. The warrior bag, as we had deemed it. The second bag had a large medical kit strapped to it, the medicine bag, and the third had the cooking set and the reliable flint-and-steel fire starter, as well as an extra MRE, the gourmet's bag. Slink had perched himself on the food-filled bag and set about pulling out dried fruits while he thought no-one was looking. Nobody bothered to stop him, we had plenty, but Greens had returned her new Archeops as soon as she had landed.

"We all share everything for now," Greens spoke up, taking the leadership role for the moment, "because it is the only way we'll survive. We cannot fight over this, or we will-"

"Kill each other?" I smirked at my own dark humor, but the Johto boy thumped me. An awkward silence filled the area for only a moment before I reached out and threw the weapon-laden bag over my back. They both gave me hesitant, slightly scared looks. Their meaning went unsaid, but perfectly known: so far, I was the only killer. Unless the other Johto tribute had killed someone at the cornucopia. He hadn't killed the man with the Skarmory, no cannons had fired between then and now.

"You know, we could split up this bag better," I commented, looking my companions over, "Greens has a sword, and- wait, better topic," I looked at the newcomer, "what the hell are we going to call you?"

"Well, my name's Ferris, so I don't mind-"

"Bueller." Greens' comment brought a snicker to my lips. Ferris' brow narrowed at us.

"I fuckin' hate that movie."

"Too late now, Bueller. No real names in here." I smirked at his frustration, but he seemed to roll with the name within minutes. We began to bicker about backpack arrangements and weaponry division, until another fairly important topic came up.

"So, Greens, if you wanna 'nother sword so bad, does that mean you're good at sword-fightin'?" Bueller handed the girl the sword handle-first, and she picked it up with inexperienced hands. She was klutzy with it to a fault, her over-exaggeration triggering some doubt in my brain. But I waved it aside as she answered the question.

"Well, uh," she held the one-handed weapon with both hands, looking over the blade at an odd angle, "I used swords the most in training, as well as survival stuff which was super simple, but mostly swords."

"That means no," I filled in. Bueller chuckled as she huffed at us, placing the sword in her belt and handing over a half-dozen throwing knives for the bag in exchange. I had returned it to the trifecta of bags on the ground to make it easier to argue over them. "I need to check on this Grovyle, maybe you can give Greens some lessons?"

"Why, so she can kill us easier later?" I couldn't tell whether he was simply joking or actually posing a scenario. I looked at Greens for a moment, and we surprisingly locked eyes.

"No," I spoke after a tense moment, "because she doesn't deserve to be in here. We ran the risk for ages, you were practically gunning for it. She deserves a chance." She blinked and a tear rolled down her cheeks. Great. She was going to start thinking I liked her or something. All I needed now was to make an emotional attachment back, and the crowds in Unova would love us.

Actually, that wasn't a half-bad idea.

I quickly looked away from her tears and feigned a stutter as I continued, "I-uh-just take care of her, okay?"

"Oh, for Arceus' sake," the other Johto tribute pulled a sword from the bad pile and brandished it at Greens, "I better not catch you two going at it behind my back. Girlie, sword out, I'm going to put you through the paces."

As they began to duel in the small empty space of the camp, I drew out the Grovyle's Pokéball and summoned Slink with a whistle. We strode a fair ways away from the camp and took a seat on a large rock before I decided to release the green lizard. It was only barely conscious, groaning as it materialized on the rocky earth in front of us. I looked over his remaining anatomy, noticing the familiarity. He and the Archeops were rather symmetrical. Where the bird had wingtips, the Grovyle had a patch of three, razor-sharp leaves (he used to have six, for the record), and they both had similar haunches, elongated necks, and tails. They weren't perfect matches, by any means, but probably evolutionarily related. I toyed with the idea of making some sort of wooden prosthetic when the lizard looked at me and let out an angry hiss.

"Oh, calm down," I snipped back, "you're not bleeding anymore, are you?" He gave an indignant crowing as he waved the stump angrily at me, but made no move to attack. "I know you aren't happy, but short of an evolution that was the best I could do. Don't lizards grow limbs back, anyways?" He shook his head angrily, hopping awkwardly along the ground on all threes. That would definitely need some work. Thus ensued the most boring day we spent within the arena. I made the lizard run laps over rocks, brush, and other rough terrain until sundown, by which time he was blazing over rocks as if he had never lost a limb. Adaptable little thing, and equally as ruthless, as seen by his fearless attack on the Aggron-wielding trainer from a day or so before. Greens and Bueller practiced sword-fighting and knife-throwing all day, and I set about scouting the area and keeping watch. I wanted a good excuse to sleep all night. Sleep deprivation wasn't new to me in the slightest, but that didn't mean that nearly forty-eight hours without sleep was doing me any good.

I found a decent amount of edible roots in the damp earth around the camp, and the winding river was almost over-filled with strange, foreign fish Pokémon. Two varieties were practically identical, save the shape of their fins and their colorings, and the third I saw was almost spherical and seemed to be filled with sharp teeth. The one time I went to fill my canteen, they practically threw themselves on to the shore in an attempt to eat me alive. Slink blasted them with waves of Silver Wind and we strung up a few to haul back to camp. The water, for what it was worth, was the purest I've ever tasted.

"Bueller will take the first watch," Greens declared as I returned to the camp, the sun casting wide shadows in the canyon. I ripped a hole open in the Butterfree-silk bag we had made and dumped the fish out "you did not get bit, did you? Carvanha and Basculin are nasty fish. But Basculin taste pretty good, and we can use Carvanha teeth as razor blades."

"That sharp?" Bueller kicked the dead fish towards Greens, who bent over to examine it.

"Enough to chew through metal," Greens deadpanned as she carefully picked up the corpse of the toothy fish, "so let's cook it up first so we can get at its teeth. But how did you find a Red Basculin and a Blue one?"

"Is that weird?" I asked, looking at the two bigger fish on the ground, "I just figured to get one of each of what was in there."

"Red-stripes do not enjoy the company of Blue-stripes," Greens explained to us, "they usually kill each other on sight…"

"This is also the Arena," Bueller spoke with a worried look towards the water's edge, "maybe they're bred up special to cooperate and kill quicker."

"Or maybe they're waiting for a trigger." We all stared out at the river for a silent moment, before a cannon echoed through the canyon's walls. "How many is that?"

"Twelve, I think," Greens said after a moment, "if you meant the total."

"Congratulations, friends," Bueller gave a morbid grin as he fished in one of the bags for a package of Tauros jerky, ripping it open and handing out pieces to everyone, "let out that Archeops and give him a bite, we've got somethin' to celebrate about."

After introducing the slightly skittish, scaly bird to the rest of the group, she coaxed it in to sitting with us and got him to eat. Heartily, I might add. He polished off a Basculin raw before we could stop him, but there were plenty more in the winding river around us. It wasn't long before a familiar blaring anthem rumbled through the canyon, and we searched the sky in a vain attempt to find the hologram of our death - or deaths, we had no clue - that occurred that day.

"Strange, they usually position it so that everyone can view it," I muttered as I pulled myself closer to the fire, curling up and attempting to get some shuteye as the others guarded.

"We're also deep in a canyon, dubya-cee," Bueller pointed out, "could easily be behind us somewhere. You had watch all afternoon, right?"

"Yep, I'll see you at dawn. Crits in your favor and all that jazz."

"Goodnight, Wildcard," Greens called, and a fine mist of powder from Slink had me out cold before I could give a response. Dreamless, yet incredibly deep sleep enveloped me. If I hadn't been roughly pulled to my feet, I wouldn't have woken up. Even at that, I stumbled and hit the ground within seconds, rubbing Sleep Powder from my eyes as the bug chattered at me fearfully.

* * *

><p>"Get the fuck <em>up<em>," Bueller yelled over some faint roar, "Arceus, dubya-cee! You wanna sleep? Do it with the fish!" I looked up at him as he slung the Warrior Bag over his back, and I picked up the last one - I had no idea what it was at the time - and stumbled after him. He was bolting for the wall as if his life depended on it.

"What's going on?" I forced a yell, no adrenaline coming to my aid. Bueller simply stopped, grabbed my head, and I thought it was going to be all over. However, he merely turned it to face one end of the canyon. Every chemical that could have been released in my body at that moment was definitely pumped out in full force: There was a tiny, brown and blue speck riding a monstrous wave towards us. The wave itself was speckled with a frothing school of red, blue, and black. Every Pokémon in the river must have been using Surf at the same time, and we were definitely the target. The exposed river bend seemed like an absolutely awful idea in hindsight.

"Up the ledge! Get in a cave!" I barked out the order as Slink flew for a ledge and began spinning silk.

"_Now _he gets it!" We pumped our legs towards the ledge just as Slink had reached the bottom again, flitting off almost immediately for the next good anchor point. I gave the rope a tug, and when nothing tumbled I began to climb. The roaring water was definitely noticeable now as it echoed ever closer. I gave a brief look at the obvious instigator: a Squirtle sliding along the water as if everything was dandy and he was just out for a short surf. The next string shot line was ready by the time I hit the ledge, and I gave a yank before clambering up to the next ledge.

My mind began racing as my muscles finally woke up, pulling me effortlessly along the rock wall as Bueller struggled behind. At the next ledge, I was sure to shoot the wave a quick look as I hauled up my partner. It was moving at an incredible rate, the fish surging inside of it, egging it on even faster. Slink crammed another rope in my hands and snapped me back to reality as Bueller herded me up the rope. The rock was becoming looser, but this rope still held, and would lead us to a cave that was hopefully high enough.

"Faster! Move yer ass!" Bueller shoved my foot up to the next hold I could find in the rock, and it proved just good enough to slip out from under me and send a large rock in to his immediate path. With a yelp, I heard him drop down to the previous ledge and - thank Arceus - land on his feet. The roaring, crashing wave was deafening as he began to scramble up the ledge again. We were cutting this far too close.

"Get up here!" I slid down a few feet and offered him my hand, which he grabbed without hesitation. We took a look at the wave, which was far too close for comfort, and I began to haul him back up towards the cave. It would be just on the lip of the wave, or the curl, or whatever it was. It was out of reach, and that's what I cared about. But so was the cave. The roaring was so incredibly loud, and my ears began to ring and ache as my mind reeled with the pain. After what felt like forever, I hauled myself over the edge and in to what I hoped was netting before I returned to the ledge and grabbed Bueller's arms. He was too late, though, and he knew it. He shouted something as he slipped, nearly yanking me over the edge as a loose lip crumbled soundlessly in to the abyss below. I could hear nothing, I could feel nothing, except the rumble and the roar of that monstrous wave...

It him full force, and in a split-second decision, I let go.


	6. The Aftermath

_Sorry for the hiatus, my life has been insanely crazy. Got a job, possible Air Force move, saying goodbye, packing, etc. Please forgive me._

"Ferris!"

I knew I was screaming. I could feel my throat buzz and rasp, my body heaving in another breath as I went to scream again, but nothing could be heard over the tremendous pounding echo of the wave. I had never before regretted a decision so much in my life. I had let him go, watched his panicked eyes as he was sucked in to the abyssal wave fraught with ferocious Carvanha and Basculin. He was gone before I could blink, and the rushing water had pushed me back in to the cave. Slink was soaked and grounded behind me, and the receding water washed clean the entrance, sucking the webs from the cave floor and back after the torrent.

"Ferris!" I could hear myself this time, faint but clear over the wave pounding through the canyon. I scrambled to the mouth of the hole in the canyon wall, looking desperately at the water as it rushed away. The canyon below was littered with beached, slower fish, but wiped clean of any other life and most of the dirt and sand. The great wave frothed red as it pressed further down the canyon, but all I cared was straining my ears to hear the boom of a cannon over my own screaming.

For the first time in the League, I began to sob. Uncontrollable, body-wracking regret filled every ounce of me. The only competitor who had ever paid me any kindness in the arena was just another victim to me. What had I become? What sort of horrible monster was I? I looked on towards the wave, far away and much smaller than before, and waited. Waited for that tell-tale sign that Ferris was actually gone. Slink hauled himself over to me, sopping wet, missing an antenna, thoroughly exhausted. I pulled him tight in to my arms when he brushed my hand, careful of his wilted wet wings, yet careless of my own safety. It didn't matter anymore, though. I was gone. This monster, this unpredictable Wildcard had filled my shoes. I had killed one person before this, and in the most awful, brutal way. And now I had just betrayed one of my only friends left in this world.

The boom of the cannon brought about a fresh wave of sorrow and self-loathing. Slink had no idea what was going on, clicking in my ears a string of meaningless, sympathetic gibberish. He didn't understand. He was just a bug. How long would it be before I- no, I felt bile rise in my throat at the mere thought. He was still my friend, I needed him, Slink didn't have to die.

"Butterfree don't even taste good, anyways," I mumbled to myself, rubbing his head. The stub of his missing antenna sprung out from under my fingers as I passed over it, and I could almost hear him sigh with relief.

And, very suddenly, I evened out. Much later, I would come to feel horrible about this moment: the quick recovery over my first true murder, and of a friend at that. I chuckled at the thought of how many hours of therapy it would take me to recover from my actions, from the League itself. However, at the time, it was such a relief. A weight lifted from my shoulders. Unfortunately, the weight being lifted was quite literal. Tiny claws dug in to my shoulder through my shirt as Slink was plastered with a thick, sticky webbing. With a hissing screech my friend was hauled up towards the ceiling. Panic overwhelmed me as I reached for the other pokéball on my bandolier almost instinctively, staring up at the dark abyss that held whatever creature was reeling in Slink. A flash of yellow electricity jumped from a yellow and blue creature down the line of webbing and shocked my Butterfree senseless. I depressed the button on the Pokéball and the three-legged Grovyle materialized on the damp floor.

In the flash of red light from the Pokéball, I realized exactly how much trouble I was suddenly in. The tunnel was rather wide and very tall, but almost smooth with the webbing, save for the entrance. Thousands upon thousands of tiny eyes reflected off of the glow from the Pokéball, thousands of tiny yellow bodies clamoring towards Slink, the Grovyle, and myself quicker than we could think. Slink came to almost instantly and began to shake free as much sleep powder as he could muster from between the webs.

"No!" I opened my mouth to protest further and sucked in a huge amount of the sleep-inducing dust, coughing and hacking away my next order. My head immediately began to spin as dozens of tiny, yellow bugs dropped from their webs around us, out cold. I pulled my shirt over my mouth and grabbed for Slink's Pokéball. In another flash of light the bug was safe, but a new threat suddenly dropped from the ceiling on top of the green, three-limbed partner next to me. In a blur of yellow, blue, and green, they tumbled over the floor, each emitting screeches and hisses as they fought.

I struggled against the ensuing haze of sleep for the one thing that might actually save us. As I hit my knees, I weakly tossed an Ultra Ball towards the fray, and that's all I remembered doing…

* * *

><p>"Oh, Arceus, this is awful," I lamented, staring out from the high, empty cave we had been hiding in. The water had receded and the entire canyon floor seemed to be wiped clean of… Arc, everything. Trees had doubled over, sand and gravel wiped from the rocks, smaller fish Pokémon flopped on the bottom, so far away from the thin, trickling river. It was almost heart-wrenching. I sighed and wrapped my arms around my Archeops. I just wanted this whole thing to be over. Wildcard was probably gone, or Ferris, or maybe both canons fired at the same time and they were both dead. It was anyone's guess, I suppose.<p>

A slightly morbid thought occurred: They had backpacks filled with supplies. I had grabbed the bag filled with swords, for some stupid reason. I mean, I can handle a blade, but I wasn't ruthless. Wildcard was ruthless. That kid… Anyways, I would need to get to their bodies as quick as I could and grab those bags. Even if they were water-logged, there would still be something to take from them. I hope. "Come on, go!" I gave the Arceus a light kick in the sides and we took off much faster than I expected.

We swooped down low in to the canyon to avoid the prying eyes of any tributes who may be watching the skies. I still wasn't used to this flying thing, but since our manic escape earlier that morning, I wasn't nearly as opposed to it. I had been the only safe one. We skirted a good twenty feet above the damn rocky bottom, just high enough to be safe, just low enough to see. I squinted my watering eyes at the ground as we made our first pass. Within ten minutes or so, we had made our way to the end of the canyon, which was strange enough in itself: A nearly featureless slab of rock with a large, thick grate on the bottom to filter out the water. That wasn't so strange, what was strange was the huge pile of dead and dying fish-like Pokémon that had been slammed against the grate. The Archeops bolted for the grate, and all of the easy-to-catch food, as soon as I had dismounted. I took my time and surveyed the area, looking for any sign of any of them. I found one spare sword lodged in a rock that was impossible to pull out, the remains of a large first aid kit strewn about (of which I was able to salvage some damp bandages, a spool of thread, and a box of needles) and one shoe before something caught my eye.

My Archeops, the little sneak, was trying to eat a backpack from the pile of debris and fish around the grate. Maybe he was helping, or maybe he was just that hungry. Either way, I decided to wander over and help.

"Hey, buddy," I asked, "What have you got there?" He ignored me, tugging at the stuck backpack, which refused to even budge from the pile. "Here, I will help you out," I grabbed some of the dying Basculin from around the bag and shifted them aside. Tree limbs and smaller stones were shifted around as we began to dislodge the stuck bag. I wrapped my hands around each side of it as the Archeops bit the handle on the top, and we both gave one great tug.

Out from the pile came the backpack with a slippery 'schlick', as well as something extra for us. It took me a moment to realize what we had just done, and even longer for everything to click in to place. We had just hauled a large, mangled corpse from the pile around the grate. Hands still around the bag, I turned the corpse over without even thinking. Ferris' dead, distant eyes were bulging out from the pressure that had been exerted on him, dark criss-cross bruises lined his face and arms where he had been slammed against the grate. He was pale and slimy and very, very obviously dead.

"Oh, oh Arceus," I dropped him and began to retreat away from him as a dull roar started up in the distance. They were coming to take his body away, and I was absolutely glad to be rid of it. The backpack didn't matter, his clothes, his gear, none of it mattered. I had never before been so close to death in my life. Never before seen a dead person just… Look up at me like that. Ferris' hazy, bulbous eyes just staring up at me. I buried my face in my hands, but all I could see was his blank stare. I quickly shut it away, bile rising in my throat, and looked up just in time to see a metal arm drop from some weird flying machine. It grabbed the limp corpse and began to reel it in. Just as the doors began to close, a red and white orb dropped from one of his pockets and hit the ground, releasing its contents. A Magmar materialized just in time to look up and see the mangled corpse of its master.

"Mag," it bellowed, "Mag! Maaaaarrrrrr!" Its mournful cries echoed through the canyon, overpowering the drone of propellers as the machine vanished. The fiery reptilian continued to scream, to yell, to roar in anguish, flames erupting from its mouth, great billows of sorrow.

I still couldn't get the look on his face out of my head, but I think that's all the Magmar wanted to see…


	7. Metamorphosis

I had no idea how long I was out for. It was a horrible, dreamless dark that lasted an eternity. Not like being knocked out. Like being drugged.

I vaguely remember when I hit the ground, or from how high it was, but I do remember what tore me out of the webby cocoon I had been swaddled in. The Grovyle. He was momentarily towering over me as his one arm pulled me to my feet. I had to steady myself against him for a moment, still woozy and very much numb from whatever had put me under.

There was a beat before I realized what I was leaning against. This was definitely not the Grovyle. I pushed myself away for a moment so I could get a blurry view of my new savior. A surprisingly calm, reptilian face looked back down at me, the healed stub of an arm giving me an odd sort-of tap. I think it was meant to be reassuring. Without hesitation, he picked me up and placed me on his back. I slid limply down in to his brushy tail, which curled up slightly to hold me firm as he went about his business. Whatever that was. I found out a few moments later when a webby bundle was tossed over the creature's shoulder and landed in my lap. My hands took their sweet time numbly fumbling with the thread until I finally unraveled the package. There was a crumpled, powdery white sheet wrapped around a large, purple thorax. For a moment I was moving like an automaton, not realizing what I was doing until a pair of antennae sprung free from the bindings. There was something strange about those large, multifaceted red eyes…

No.

No_, no, __**no**_.

It was sobering. It was sickening. The corpse of the Butterfree was heavy in my arms. It was too much. If my legs would have worked, I would have thrown myself out in to the canyon. As it was, I barely managed to catch myself as my shock uprooted me from the large grass Pokémon's back. I landed on my elbows hard, cradling the half-cocooned body. This wasn't happening. It couldn't possibly be happening. It was then, however, that I began to remember what had happened. We had been attacked shortly after the tidal wave, dozens of yellow bugs descended upon us and I must have been electrocuted and bound up. But I don't remember the pain of electrocution…

I could piece together what followed that: the Grovyle must have fought off a hell of a lot of the bugs. I could see gashes in the webbing where he must have sliced away, scorch marks from errant blasts of electricity, and a lone ultra ball sitting in the webby wreckage. I thought the Grovyle evolved. I knew that I must have caught something, otherwise the ultra ball would have broken. And I was fairly certain that Slink was… Slink was…

The memory hit me very suddenly: great billows of power. A flash of light. The sudden flooding of my system with the sedative scales of the Butterfree's wings. My hand found the Pokéball on the bandolier around my midriff, and a sudden wave of relief washed over me. In a moment, my partner was hovering in front of me. Disoriented, still a little powdery, and slightly disturbed by the corpse of the other Butterfree next to me, but otherwise fine. "If you knew," I growled through a smile, "how much you had me worried..."

We stayed in the cave for a while. I didn't know what else to do, really. Occasionally I would peer out at the wreckage that had been caused by the torrential surf, trying to spot anything that might be useful in the slightest. The multiple beached fish were being picked clean by large, bony bird Pokemon the likes of which I had never seen. Some sort of Unovan horror, I was sure. Removing the bag from my back, I discovered that I had grabbed the Medicine Bag, which would have been nice if we had sustained any serious injuries. I pulled out and ate the MRE that was inside.

It was three days before anything truly exciting happened. A freak thunderstorm whipped through on day two, the canon fired twice through the deafening howls against the lip of the cavern. On the third day, I emptied out the last pack of dried food as the much larger lizard picked clean the last spider that we had deemed "safe to eat." And, until then, it did not occur to me that I had thrown an Ultra Ball during the fray. And I was not quite sure of the contents.

"Did I ever open this?" I held up the Ultra Ball for Slink and the grass Pokémon to examine. After a moment, they both shook their heads. Strange. I pointed the ball away from me to see what I had caught. A familiar flash of light illuminated the cave, condensing in to the smallest speck of a Pokémon I had ever seen in my life. It looked like a furry, yellow little tick. Large blue eyes looked up at me fearfully, and I could tell that it was about to bolt.

"Oh, little guy-" I was interrupted by an indignant squeaking from the bug as I extended a hand.

"Jol! Joolll!" It snapped me with a tiny blue bolt, not much more than a static shock. But definitely enough to make me yelp after the days of boredom spent curled up in slightly damn webbing.

"Ow, shit, fine. Are you a girl, then?" I rubbed my numbed fingers as the little bug bobbed in agreement. "Alright, girlie, welcome aboard Team Wildcard. You in?" I re-extended my hand again. There was a tentative moment where she didn't quite know what to do, switching between readying herself to flee and readying herself to climb up my arm. Eventually, however, she scuttled up and settled on my chest like a brooch.

"Good choice," I muttered as I gave her a gentle scratch. Slink settled himself on my bag as I turned towards the entrance of the cave, and the green lizard limped ahead of me on all threes. We both peered out again, as we had taken to doing at least once every fifteen minutes or so. We lazily scanned the riverbed, the trees, the weird birds, the trio of competitors, the far side of the-

I froze up. I knew that trio. They were all of the Kanto Tributes. I immediately dove behind the edge of the cave, poking my head out just enough to keep tabs on them. Three trainers, two boys and a girl, and two Pokémon. One of the boys was very lanky and had a oddly familiar Squirtle on his shoulder, while the other was built like a brick house with a Pokéball on his bandolier. The third one, the girl, was dressed to the nines in sharp, shining objects. They were all cooperating, as the Careers tended to do, but something was wrong. They were yelling at each other, obviously not paying attention to their surroundings, each taking turns teaming up with another to tear in to a third.

I didn't know what I was doing until I was maybe halfway down the cliff. Miraculously, I had gone unseen as I rappelled down the side of the canyon on a thick stream of stored-up String Shot. We hit the tree line on the opposite shore and I pulled out the hatchet from around my belt. I was going to kill them. I didn't know when exactly I had decided it, somewhere between ordering Slink to set up a loose circle of tripwire string shots and ordering the lizard up a tree. We approached from three angles, pinching them against the three of us and the wall. The hardest part was getting us across what remained of the river. For a full thirty seconds, I was completely exposed as Slink psychically made a downstream disturbance. They were all too angry at each other to be effectively watching. I couldn't believe it. We were so close.

I should elaborate a little more. They had made camp under a rocky outcropping, which was completely surrounded by leaning trees and debris. The way that some trees had fallen had created a pocket in which they were completely protected from the elements. However, they had no easy way of escape save for retreating up the cliff, which I doubt they could do. I came from upstream of them, practically walking through debris and very well-hidden, with the sound of the river covering my footsteps. As I got closer, I scooped up a handful of mud and covered any exposed skin up to help myself hide. The larger lizard was coming from downstream, where the trees had been relatively sheltered from harm and he was able to maneuver through them quite easily. Which left Slink fluttering innocuously towards the river, pretending to feed on obviously dead flowers in bushes. It was somewhat sadly accurate, really. Other Pokémon of all sorts were trying to feed on the plants, bug-types mostly, and Sink fit right in.

We waited just on the edge of their camp for a few minutes. I watched my lizard companion stick out his large tail like a branch, but otherwise he didn't move. Slink fluttered harmlessly. I was motionless. The campsite, however, was obviously uneasy.

"Something isn't right, guys," the girl spoke, looking around. I closed my eyes before she could see them, but otherwise did not move.

"Yeah, we're in a fucking murder competition, darling," one of them replied smarmily, "and this fucking canyon is the only place we haven't looked for the last two Johto tributes." They were so close. I knew I could kill one of them before they all noticed. Suddenly, there was a loud snap from the opposite side of their small campground. I watched a branch drop to the ground from a green claw. He had done that on purpose.

"What the hell was that?" The lanky boy with the Squirtle must have jumped half a foot in the air before pulling a sword from its sheath. The girl and other boy got up to investigate it, too. I was moving before they were completely converged on the area almost exactly where the grass Pokémon was. The hatchet was up. My feet pounded against the sand, making it incredibly hard to run very quickly, but I was moving. The girl turned around first and let out a shocked scream. My arm whipped around to silence her, but caught something else. The large man, who I hadn't even see, caught the hatchet with the side of his head and immediately hit the ground in a twitching heap.

Canon fire. I had done it.

I pulled out my knife as the girl continued to scream. She was next. She would have to die next. A green blur pounced from the trees and sliced the lankier boy across the midriff from my peripheral as I bore down on the girl. She pulled a handful of throwing knives and began to expertly throw them at me. One sliced open my left arm, and the second was deflected by a blast of psychic energy from Slink. Before I could get any closer, a long blue body wrapped itself around my midriff, pulling me to the ground. I whipped around and buried the knife in to the scaly flesh. There was an immediate contraction in response, but I began to hack my way out of a Dragonair's grasp. I had no clue where it had came from, but it was dead within moments. A mighty dragon-type. Dead. I threw the coils off of me and turned to see where it had came from, and saw the lanky kid on the ground.

"I f-fucking hate you," he spluttered. He was in horrible shape, an open Pokéball in his hand and his guts in his lap. Behind him, a small turtle was having its shell separated from its body by the vicious green killer I had under my control. "You fucking m-monster." He weakly tossed his sword at me, and it missed. He was no longer a threat, and I bolted off after the girl, the yellow bug bobbing on my chest. That was when I had a marvelous idea.

She gave a shriek somewhere in front of me. Perfect. Slink's strings must have tripped her up. I came on to her just as she was struggling to her feet and went with my plan. "Thunderwave," I shouted as I pulled the bug from my chest and hurled it at the struggling Tribute. The bug dug in its fangs and she was instantly paralyzed, flopping over on the floor in gross convulsions as she was riddled with electricity. So simple. So brutal. I yanked her head back by her air, brought about the knife, and rested it against her throat.

What the fuck had just happened?

There was a moment of perfect clarity in the middle of that horrible competition. A moment where I realized what I had just done. First, I had crept up on a bunch of unassuming trainers and launched a surprise murder spree, which in itself was a horrible thing. But how I had done it. It was instinctual. The hatchet had come around as if I had been swinging them all my life. I had planted it firmly in to someone's brain, snuffed out their life without a second thought. Secondly, that wasn't even enough for me. I was frustrated that I hadn't killed the girl first. The axe wasn't meant for him. It was meant for her.

"Please," she struggled, drool running down her lips from the continued paralysis, "just end it. Please Arceus… Just end it." She sobbed grossly, pinned down by my weight, completely helpless, "just end it. You killed him. Kill me. I want to die. Please kill me." She kept repeating it, kept sobbing, but never struggled. She didn't once struggle. I just sat there for a few moments. I couldn't let her live. She would murder me the second I turned my back. But… I did want to kill her. She needed to die. It was her or me, right? She had to die, or I might as well kill myself. Yes. She had to die. And I wanted to kill her.

"Please, please, please. Just end it. Just end it. Just e-"

Somewhere in the distance, a canon shot echoed through the canyon.

I pulled the blade across her throat in one swift movement. Her blood sprang forth almost as if it longed to escape her body. She gasped like a fish for a few seconds before she fell completely limp.

When the canon fired again, I didn't know whether I was feeling shame or pride.


	8. Reprecussions, Reunions, and Regrets

I looked up at the ferocious trainer on the screen.

Then down to the ticket in my hand.

Then back up to the axe lodging itself in to some poor Kanto sap's temple.

Then back down to the little "500:1" in the odds box on my ticket.

Back up to that dreadful little monster fucking murdering a Dragonair without even thinking about it.

Then back down to my $1,000 pity-bet I made to make the little angel feel better.

"Silver, is that kid yours?" One of the other mentors sidled up to me, some slimy man from one of the lesser regions, "he is eviscerating those careers! Where the hell did that come from?"

"The fuckin' Galvantula caves, that's where," I replied with a smirk, tucking my ticket in to my breast pocket for safe-keeping. But the slick asshole noticed me do it, and gave me this coy look that made me want to claw his eyes out. "The hell are you lookin' at?"

"He had five-hundred to one odds when the League closed initial bets, didn't he?" He licked his lips. I shit you not, he licked his fucking lips. If we hadn't been in public, I would have laid him out. But we were, and I had to act all cordial for the little scumbag.

"Yes, Jack, five-hundred to one."

"My name's Fred."

"Didn't you win by hiding in a hole and drinking your own fuckin' piss for a week?" I rounded on him. I was done with this conversation. He should know who he's talking to. Silver. Spine-Snap Silver, on account of killing damn near everyone with my bare hands twisting their heads.. Long-John Silver - on account of building a boat, tying some poor fucker up, and sending him over a waterfall in it. Shitfaced Silver on account of, well, never you mind. Anyways, he took that as a good time to am-scray. Back to my usual wide berth and thoughts, it would seem.

What was five-hundred times a thousand again? Five thousand? No, had to be higher. Fifty? Still not enough zeroes. I paced around the lobby, occasionally looking up at the screen to see what was going on - he had just used the Joltik he had picked up as a hand grenade! A _stun_ grenade! How incredible is that!?

Five hundred _thousand_ dollars! This little beauty, this wildcard fella, was about to make me half of a millionaire!

Okay, quarter of a millionaire. If he won. Because I promised the little blight that I'd split it with him. I remember him looking at the odds, worrying. I remember buying bets on all of my little minions, and telling them they were each worth a thousand bucks. And then of course I had to do it. What else am I doing with the money, really? His friend - who he fucking let drown, the little bitch - was a solid thirty to one odds, and the ooky spooky girl was a hundred to one and I felt a bit bad about that bet. But I thought I was throwing a thousand bucks in the trash on this wiry little kid. Sure, he was just short of the non-murder league. Sure, he was packing a full team of contenders, and conviction, and just the right fear-risk mix, but now he'd snapped. And at just the right time! If a competitor snaps before the half-way mark, they usually die within the day. But he was one of those beautiful late-game snappers. And he even single-handedly brought about the late game!

_Five hundred __**thousand**__ dollars!_

I _had_ to rub this in Red's smug fucking mug. I looked through the crowd of bizarrely-dressed Unovans for that signature red tuxedo that he always insisted on wearing. And with whatever the hell baseball cap that was supposed to be, he really looked like a dork. However, he was the first victor we ever had. And he was always taunting his wondrous little careers around. Not this time, though. There, he was getting a drink! I must have been so smooth, taking the seat next to him at the bar, buying his drink.

"Celebrating early?" He shot me this right dirty look over his beer. It should have cut holes in the foam while he sipped. "I see your wildcard is making short work of my trainers."

"Short fucking work indeed," we actually grinned at each other, and he flashed me a ticket in his pocket. That son of a bitch! "Oh, you son of a bitch, how much?"

"Twenty." Ha! Twenty dollars! I took a chug of my own beer, before he just had to finish his sentence, "thousand." I thought I would spit beer out of my ass how hard I choked.

"What the fuck?" That's just about all I could think, too, "Why the hell did you do that?"

"At first I thought the kid had some sort of grand master plan," Red remarked, "then I heard that he was attempting to be a trainer within the League itself. And trainers fair pretty well," he himself being a fantastic fucking trainer would know, "but now, not only is he a trainer packing three useful Pokémon, but he's a late-game snapper on top of it. If he can get even one more interesting little creature from the terrain or a downed trainer, he'll be in for a smooth ride. Even now, I almost feel ten million dollars richer. How much did you say you bet?"

"A thousand each, and I said I'd split whatever I won with the winner." And the little shit knew the odds, too, so no screwing him out of money.

"Hey, a quarter-million on top of what we get as champions is nothing to laugh at," he always had to have this optimistic attitude, and you know, I didn't usually like it. But now, I did see the light. That was probably two years pay? Or a very, very nice car. Or I could finally get one of those funny-colored Pokémon I kept seeing on TV. One of those smoky-flamed Rapidashes would be absolutely beautiful to own.

"You think this kid winning would bankrupt the League?" Red snickered in to his beer as he finished it, and I ordered us another round. What the hell was he laughing about?

"Well, considering I alone put about one million on my competitors, I think they might be okay." I can't fucking believe that. Not even 'couldn't', because I still can't. I had to order something a little stronger to stomach that one, on top of my beer.

"Where the hell do you get this money from, Red?" I knew. Everybody knew. But it was reflex just to ask after a reveal like that, you know?

"Remember that supposed deaf-mute that won the first Hunger League?" That would be him, the smug old bastard. I had won the third. "The kid with twenty-thousand to one odds because he was borderline special needs?" Yes, yes, get to the kicker.

"I bet the last seven-hundred and thirty-two dollars I had on him."

So that was the actual number. The math started to rattle around in my brain as he picked up his drink and walked away smiling, that fucking red suit tuxedo number cutting a swathe in the crowd. That or people hesitant to spill a drink on the biggest surprise in League history. Seven-thirty-two times twenty-zero-zero-zero-zero…

"Fourteen-fucking-million and sixty-four-thousand dollars on one fucking bet." I muttered it out loud just to make sure I had done the math right. I suppose I had, because the bartender nodded. "Now I have to have something stronger. And a pen and a napkin, I don't think that shit sounds right."

* * *

><p>"Looks like it's down to six," I mumbled, pulling the Archeops a little closer. It was incredibly cold in our secretive little snow fort, but we were so well hidden. Even if the recent volley of canon fire had shaken down some loose snow on top of us. It had become out fallback in the last few days of the tournament. Two days ago I got in a scrape with a wild Glalie, and that really put me in a tough spot, but luckily my dear Archeops is much better suited to fighting things off than I am. I still couldn't feel the tips of my fingers, though. I had named him Brutus after a while, because he needed a nice name, and he was a fossil Pokémon and a bit brutal.<p>

The bag I had grabbed was the food-filled goodybag, and the little makeshift igloo was just warm enough to bear. We couldn't cook anything, but I had food for ages still left, and as much water as we could melt with the fun little heating bags inside of the MREs. I had, at first, thought I had grabbed the warrior bag, as we had called it, but under the piles of miscellaneous weaponry there was a hidden pocket of food.

We. We had called it the warrior bag.

A chill ran up my spine as the face of Ferris flashed in my head. The Pokéball containing his Magmar was suddenly much heavier in my pocket. I didn't dare release him: he was loud, angry, too obvious of a target, and would melt our little hidey-hole. His ball, however, was hot to the touch and helped to soothe my frost-bitten fingers.

My mind then flickered to Wildcard. A strange swell of emotions followed his reappearance in my head. Honestly, he had been on my mind for a good long time. He was still alive, somehow. And I thought we had shared a moment in the camp. Was it possible he liked me? I think I liked him. Then again, he had saved my life, and shown so much compassion for the lost little Grovyle. Smart, strong, battle-savvy. It would be a shame if he died.

And it would be murder for him and I to be last.

As if on cue, I heard the crunching of footsteps. My heart leapt in to my throat as Brutus readied himself next to me, crawling towards the front of the hole slowly. I strained my ears listening for any tell-tale sign. I knew it was one person, it was just one set of footsteps.

"Easy, boy," came an all-too familiar voice. I smiled. Brutus returned in to the igloo, followed by the thin, nimble, weary form that had equally blessed and haunted my mind for the past few days. Emotions welled as I flung myself on to him in a hug. The only person I could trust anymore was this Wildcard. There was a stunned moment on his behalf, but he was obviously cold and clung back hard. His breath was pleasantly hot, and I came face-to-face with the ragged-looking Butterfree.

"I missed you so much," I didn't know who I was addressing, the bug or the boy, but I was glad to have it out in the open.

* * *

><p>"I missed you, too," I lied. My eyes flicked to the back of the icy cave. I saw the food bag, well over half gone. I saw the freezing reptilian, who would prove quite the problem for my bugs and grassy lizard. Greens would give me little problem. But I couldn't kill her in such close proximity to this lethal bird. There was no way around an alliance. She hugged me uncomfortably tight, refusing to budge. Her fingers were cold and hard as they dug in to my back. Frostbitten most likely, I had caught a glimpse of them. I had meant to accept this embrace and plunge the knife in my hand in to her gut and have it be done with. The longer I waited, the more I would return to that piteous person that I used to be. As it stood, the knife was pressed up against her back, but not exactly useable.<p>

I could feel the Archeops glaring at me as Greens sucked my warmth. Or my neck. It was too cold to tell and too late in the game to care. She nuzzled her head in deeper and it was obvious I would have to pull away somehow. "How many people are left?"

"Six." Whoah. That was… Unexpected. Six competitors left. That was a feeling. Adrenaline pumped fresh in to my exhausted body, but it was useless against my tired muscles. I needed rest. I needed to recuperate after the happenings of an hour or so prior. I looked at Greens for a moment as she finally pulled away, and I think she could see the exhaustion on my face. She gave this weak, shy little smile that was almost irksome, and yet it was undeniably cute. Just what the cameras would want. What remained of my humanity actually reared its head in my stomach and I had to struggle against waves of remorse for the lives I just took.

"You need to sleep," she spoke. The frail girl in front of me brushed the hair out of my face, dirty and wet with sweat, "you must be tired from the little spree you just had."

"How did you-" I tensed up and held the knife perhaps a little too rigidly against her back. She definitely noticed it as she froze, wide-eyed and fearful, and dappled in blood. With a quick look down, I realized that it was blood from me. I relaxed, realizing that I had been given away. My mind wanted to start spinning up some sort of yarn, but I was exhausted and cold and the igloo and the girl were both warm and comforting. She gave me this look that sort-of shook me. It was a mixture of pity and fear and… resignation. I think she was learning what I had known for a long time. Or, at least, finally accepting it.

If anyone was going to kill her, it would most likely be me.

"Please," Greens cut the depressingly long silence, "sleep. I promise I will not…" She trailed off, biting her lip. It was too difficult to even think about for her, I guess. Or she was simply a masterful liar. "I mean, I do not think I could."

"I think we should go back to the Cornucopia tomorrow," I tried to change the subject as I removed Slink from my back and stuffed some dry fruit in his mandibles, with an extra bag for the lizard keeping watch in a tree outside. "I want to see if the Mamoswine is still there. And there was this… Box…" My vision became bleary the second I curled up in the back of the makeshift shelter.

"That sounds like a great idea," she commented absently, curling up in my arms without so much as my permission. But she was warm, and I was tired of fighting it: she was familiar and friendly.

"Sucks that we got stuck here, huh?" Here in this icy hole. Here in the middle of what could easily become a blizzard. Here in the Hunger League. She hushed me, though, getting as close as she could.

"Just make it quick when you do it, okay?"

She began to sob quietly in my arms, and that was all I remembered before I finally gave in to my exhaustion.


	9. Breaking Point

When I woke up, I had no idea where I was.

Everything was dark, yet I could see myself. I was floating in some supernatural void. Greens was gone. The arena was gone. As far as I could see there was nothing but endless darkness. I floated for what seemed like an eternity. I realized rather quickly that I was in a dream, but any attempts to move anywhere seemed fruitless. There was no feeling of air, or water, or anything. Only endless black that seemed to hold me suspended. Eventually, I decided to count, but for the life of me I couldn't keep my numbers straight. Counting aloud only lead to deafening and confusing echoes, and I could still get no further than ten before my mind forgot where I was.

Slowly, however, things became more clear. I was able to count past ten. Far past it. My thoughts became well-organized shortly after, and I felt as if I had achieved lucidity. I had heard about lucid dreaming some long time ago, but never bothered with it. I tried to conjure up a clock to check the time, but nothing appeared. I was only in control of myself. It was still, however, painfully quiet. So long as I was asleep, however, I was fine. I reclined in mid-void, simply floating along in the feeling-less expanse.

"What is it you _fear_?" The voice cut through the dark like a knife, hurting my ears and echoing endlessly until all that was left was a dull rumble. The rumble grew, and grew, and became a familiar, deafening roar. I span around to face the growing tidal wave and my feet hit some sort of invisible floor. The waves towered higher and higher until it hurt my neck to look at. It frothed red, the inside of it churning with the forms of dead trainers and Pokémon. The eerily narrow wave crashed over me, suffocating me, bodies slamming in to me and leaving me bruised, bloody, and damp. I felt like I should fall over, but an invisible force held me firm and upright.

The wave wasn't water at all. It was blood. There was a flicker of sheer horror before I realized what was going on.

Something was Nightmare-ing me.

The wave seemed to pummel me endlessly, faces looming ahead of me long before their bodies crashed in to me. My shoulders dislocated, ribs snapped, flashes of grotesque visions plagued my mind as the wave poured ever on and on. My throat was slit open by a stray knife, held firm by the girl I had murdered in the same way, and I gurgled out a roar of pain as my head was forced backwards by the tidal wave, my lungs and veins filling with water. Right before I finally blacked out, the wave ended. My head snapped back in to place. My bones were mended and I coughed out lungs filled with diluted blood in to the endless abyss below me.

I stood myself up, shook my head, slapped my face, pinched myself in an effort to rouse me. Every one of those actions hurt, but none of them worked. It was as if I was actually existing in this strange nightmare-realm now. A high-pitched cackle rang out, painfully loud. The cackling distorted itself, warped and seemed to stretch in to a painful gurgling from behind me. I did not want to face whatever it was, but the entire world began to reshape itself around me and turn me towards the source of the sounds. The canyon walls rose up next to me, endlessly tall and horribly close, as I was forced to lock eyes with a familiar, pallid form.

"You killed me," came the pained voice from the water-logged corpse, gurgling as blood dribbled from his mouth. He coughed and sprayed me with fetid water and rancid gore, "you murdered me! You let me die!"

"And I would do it again!" The apparition was caught off-guard by this, and the whole nightmare seemed to stutter. Ferris looked at me blankly, not quite sure what to do. Whatever was inside my mind knew it was the truth, but even they didn't want to accept it. I continued, "there's only one winner! I had to win! Somebody has to survive, and damn-it-all it's going to be me! You were too strong, too smart, you had to go! I had to let you go!"

"We could have worked together," he yelled, "and you killed me! You were jealous! I was the better man and you had to take the coward's way and drop me in the wave!"

"Like you wouldn't have done the same thing?" Suddenly there was a sword in my hand. And in his. I had some control again, and I swung wildly at him. His arm was lopped off, but from the stump a fresh and lively arm grew back.

"I would have saved you and you know it!" I swung at his leg, and he stumbled for a moment before a strong, healthy one replaced it. His other leg came off just as fast, and grew back the same way.

"You can't even save yourself, you pathetic little coward." His tone was low and cruel, and my temper flared as I lopped him in to pieces, each rotting slice giving way to strong, living flesh. Soon I was standing face-to-face with the true, healthy Ferris, who gave me a simple, sad smile.

"You owed me one, remember?" I hesitated, holding the sword over one shoulder, "I had saved you, and you were going to save me. Remember? I thought we were friends."

"Shut the fuck up, Bueller."

He lunged at me, wrapping his fingers around my throat. He throttled me, choked me, beat me, and I was helpless. Whoever was in control kept my hands from moving, my feet, everything, and just when I thought I would pass out, I was revived. Ferris turned to the tribute with the Squirtle, who screamed and called me a monster and sliced in to my face. I screamed as I felt my cheeks give way to the jagged dull knife he was using. He plunged the blade in to the middle of the chest and disemboweled me. I couldn't possibly describe the feeling of having my own organs spilling in to the void as he gave a deranged laugh, screaming "Monster! Monster! Monster!"

Then the Dragonair, who wrapped itself tight around my entire body and squeezed until my ribs broke, body-wracking pain as each one snapped. Everything was horribly, vividly real and there was nothing I could do. And just as my last breath eked out, the dragon would relax, and I would heal and take one small gulp, and the cycle would begin anew. This was possibly the worst. Getting so close to death, every bone in my body snapping, then finally letting out a death rattle and being brought back from the brink by the malicious being who was in control.

What followed this was actually relaxing. The man who I buried my ax in materialized, wielding the very same ax, and he slammed it hard in to my own temple. My brain scrambled itself, memories flashing by in rapid succession. My starter being murdered. My name being pulled. The fear of finding the dead Butterfree. My sobbing parents. A roulette of memories spun, beginning to slow until it landed on one particularly biting one. I felt myself shrink. I was ten again. Alone, in the woods. I had my starter with me, a Cyndaquil, keeping me warm. I heard tree branches begin to snap as something approached-

No. Not this one.

"Hey, sport," came a gruff voice, a large filthy man appearing out of the trees, "what are you doing out here all alone?"

Not this memory. Not this one. Never again.

Very, very dimly, I heard Greens say something.

I screamed and screamed as loud as I could, calling her name, calling for Slink and the lizards, my parents, my friends. I felt rough hands on my arms, the bark against my back. I hadn't thought about this in years, and now I was living it again.

No, no, no, no, no…

* * *

><p>Something wasn't right.<p>

"Something isn't right!" I landed on the Sceptile and clicked to him softly, "It's too quiet."

"Hush, bug," he said, though he turned his head to where I had felt the disturbance. "I smell something strange."

"Watch my back and stay quiet." I flitted off after the strange aura without another word. My lone antenna twitched, soaking up the surrounding energies, but having a hard time pinpointing anything. However, the strange darkness was fairly strong and I was very certain of its danger. After a time, I came across the disturbance: A sleeping human and some strange feminine ghost in a trance. Perhaps it was sleeping, too?

"What'll we do," the lizard asked as it caught up to me. I hushed it angrily before silently flapping my way over to the ghost. Out cold, the both of them.

"I'm going to eat their dreams," I hissed, settling over the girl, feeling the spectral energy pool in my mouth, "watch my body for me, would you?"

* * *

><p>As I laid there sobbing, bleeding, and defeated, I was given a short reprieve. The forest floor warped slightly under me, the thick of Ilex forest being replaced by the somewhat familiar pines and snow of the arena. I was my normal age again. I still ached, and my mind was still reeling from what had just re-happened. I wanted this nightmare to end. This was hellish. Greens, wherever she was, wasn't waking me. My Pokémon had failed me. I had just relived the single worst moment of my life, a moment that I had finally locked away in my memories, never to be spoken of again, was dredged back up. I would rather have died at the cornucopia a million times than suffer that again.<p>

The girl whose throat I slit suddenly materialized, and my aches and pains dissipated as she approached me. She held in her hands a needle and thread, and when she cackled the entire room rung.

Wait. This wasn't the girl. This was the other Johto tribute. I could just barely remember her, my mind so far gone in this horrible nightmare. She could see the recognition on my face as I was stood up and brought to bear in front of her. I didn't fight it.

"Oh, yes, little Wildcard," she spoke, the dream voice cackling behind us, "now you remember me. And trust me, this is going to be quite the memorable experience. I didn't know how busy of a Combee you've been, but you will serve your penance. Just like the rest of my victims." She was on me in a flash, the needle pressing slowly in to my lower lip, puncturing the skin. I did not scream. I couldn't. There was no reason to. this was all a dream, anyways. The pain was nothing, not even the ragged, thick thread running through the hole. I think she was perplexed with how calm I was. I smirked, I actually smirked. There wasn't anything she could do that was worse than that memory. I hardly even remember her sewing my mouth shut. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered.

She stood there when she was done, endlessly frustrated. She seethed for a moment before she snapped in front of me and brought her hand around as hard as she could before vanishing. My cheek stung as I reeled from the blow, but I righted myself easily. There was a sharp pain at the back of my legs and I hit the invisible ground on my knees. My head was yanked back, my hair clenched in her fists.

"Beg for it," the girl hissed seductively in my ear, an incredibly sharp knife pressed in to my throat. She shook me, slammed me against a wall, pressed the knife in deeper. But I would not beg. I would not give in to this. Oh, no. I would never give in to this foul creature. I had suffered much worse. She couldn't hold a candle to the tortures I had previously endured. This was just a dream, and she couldn't actually kill me in here.

Could she? I actually wanted her to. But she wanted me to want her to, so I couldn't want her to, then she would win. She couldn't win. I had to win. I _will_ win.

The cackling raised to a fever pitch as the blade was dragged slowly across my skin, a thin trickle of blood running hot down my neck. She gave a breathy sort of moan that sent a chill down my spine. She was enjoying this far too much. The cackling likewise changed, almost a heavy pant.

" Why aren't you broken?" She floated above me, the knife leaving my throat and trailing down my chest, "how come I can't seem to break you?" My shirt and skin parted, blood running down my front, but the pain was all but gone now. It was a numbing, welcome curtain for the memories I was trying to once again repress. She was over my head, around my back with the knife cutting a thin horizontal line across my chest, the bloody cross slowly healing over at her will. Her breath was hot in my ear, her tongue flicking against my earlobe for a moment.

"I _could_ let you live, my pet," a chattering, anxious giggle rang through the dreamscape, "live forever with _me_ as your queen in this… _nightmare_." Cackling for a moment, but then silence. Eerie silence. The woman, however, took no heed, "you would be my king. Isn't that what you want? _Domination_? _Victory_? An _escape_?"

"Did someone say escape?" Quick as a flash, a blue and white blur slammed through the ceiling and in to the woman holding me. A hole had been punched in the dream, the ghoul controlling us shrieking with terror as the dark sphere around us crumbled. Something had punched a perfect hole in its defenses, and that something was now devouring the young woman behind me. I spun around to see my Butterfree, now an absolutely giant specimen, very swiftly scoffing down the shrieking assailant. She was absolutely powerless, and in seconds she was gone. As soon as she disappeared, I was in control again. I leapt to my feet and pulled the thread from my lips, and it dissipated in to dust. My head snapped towards the source of the sudden pillar of light.

Through the hole in the ceiling I could hear Greens calling for me clear as day, but somehow her words were warped and strange. This was acceptable. Usual pointless dream-chatter. As I watched the hole, Slink zipped up to one edge and began to move around in huge, lightning-quick spirals. The shrieking of the ghost controlling me was almost unbearable, and then suddenly… Gone.

"Slink, I need to wake up _now_!" As if on cue, I was swept off my feet and in to his arms. We flew higher, higher, higher, up through leagues and miles of open, white air. The speed was exhilarating and the wind was wonderfully refreshing. As this new dreamscape, _my_ dreamscape, began to collapse around us, I could feel myself being shaken…

* * *

><p>I was cold. I was cold and wet with sweat, and I had a very worried little lady over me who was shaking me furiously, and I myself was so furious that I couldn't even see straight. I don't remember getting up, or what Greens was shouting to me, or how I even found Slink, who had already subdued the ghost and strung up the girl. I do remember, however, hauling her up from the snow and sticking her to a tree.<p>

She stirred, slowly shaking herself free from my nightmare, and awoke in her own. She was actually rather pretty: pale, flawless skin with long, ebony hair. Her eyes were a pale blue-grey and were innocently beautiful for the split second before she realized who I was. Oddly, she did not scream. She was awake, she was frightened, her eyes looking in every direction, but she did not scream. Maybe she thought it useless. Maybe she wanted out as badly as I did. Her lips, chapped yet still somehow gorgeous, parted for a moment, but then her thought was gone. She was hardly dirty. I stood there, my hands pressed hard on her arms, sticking her on the tree a good foot or so off the ground as Slink crawled around her and wound her up tighter.

Both of us were at a loss for words, it seemed. She must have never had to face a victim of hers before. My fury was subsiding in to a seething state of sheer loathing, but she seemed to be rather worked up. I swear to god, she even bit her lip. I let her go and she sagged slightly in her cocoon, but she refused to move. We locked eyes, just… staring. I was taking her in, taking everything in about this poor tormentor. Now she was just another competitor. She was a thin girl, roughly my age, caught up in some hellish game. And within that, she had invented her own.

"I've never had someone survive me before," she eventually whispered. I didn't respond verbally, only pulling out the hatchet from its sheath. She hissed in a breath of fear and anticipation at its appearance, but I merely looked over its surface. There was a dent where I must have hit a bone on someone, but it was otherwise pristine.

"It's intoxicating, isn't it?" I ran my thumb over the axe's edge as she spoke, quiet yet enticing, "the power, the control. You are in charge of my fate. And if I were to die," she hesitated, gulping back a sob - or possibly a moan - before she pressed on, "it would only be fitting for one of my… My victims to do it." She let her head sag as she laughed, quiet, terrified. "Poetic justice."

"I was told once that, when the body dies, there's a release of all sorts of pent-up drugs in the brain," she looked up at me as I approached, I could see her tingling with anticipation and shaking with nerves, "and that, in the few moments before you die, you enter a euphoric dream state. Many people claim this effect could possibly last forever due to the volume and potency of the chemicals. Many people claim it to be the last reprieve before finally passing on. One last dream." I pressed the knife to her throat, and she let out a shuddering sigh. "So long, of course, as your brain is intact."

I leaned in close to her and hissed in to her ear: "_Beg_ for it."

"… Please."

Slowly, deliberately, I pulled away. The hatchet came up over my head, clenched tightly in my fist. She realized what I had done, and only now began to scream in protest. A strip of string was wrapped around her mouth and held her shaking head steady against the trunk. She screamed in fear from behind the silky gag, muffled pleas for mercy as I let the moment hang for what seemed like an eternity. Tears streamed down her face, her body shook in her silken bindings. She was broken. She was _mine_.

The hatchet came down hard, and with a sickening crack, her skull split. I saw her brain, turned to a bloody goo beneath the blow of the hatchet, ensuring she would never be able to live in her own little dreamscape - or anyone else's - again.

After the final blow, I left the hatchet firmly planted in the mess, staggering backwards from the carnage to try to process what I had just done. Somewhere to my left, Greens was looking at me with absolute horror in her eyes. I could see the cogs in her head begin to turn. She was realizing how much of a monster I had become. She was rethinking every thought she ever had about me, completely reassessing her small worldview now that I was terrorizing it. Her mouth was agape, her hands frozen in the air as if she was going to try to stop me at one point.

She, too, was broken. She, too, was mine.


	10. The Final Four

It was a slow and cold walk back down to the flatland where the Cornucopia stood. Greens had grabbed tightly to one of my hands and refused to let go. She spoke very little, occasionally offering guidance through her or my old footprints, but we were two fifths of the remaining trainers left; hiding wouldn't do us much good at this point. I squeezed her hand as we crossed the snowline and felt her frostbitten digits dig back in to mine. Ahead of us was about a hundred yards or so of thinly spaced trees on a gradual slope. Slink leaned his head on my shoulder, sometimes chirruping about something I had missed. Mostly wild Pokémon we would have otherwise stumbled in to. One particularly nasty looking tree was absolutely filled with Pineco, but we gave it a wide enough berth.

"Do you think we should catch one," Greens asked as we passed. I shook my head. We'd risk the entire tree going off like a firework, which is probably exactly what the League Makers wanted. A few yards later and I confirmed my suspicions as we plodded through a blackened crater.

As the trees grew thinner and I could begin make out the vast expanse that held the Cournicopia, I made sure to keep us behind trees relative to it. If I were alone I would have made my way back by now, if only to look for scraps. We wound up approaching the massive metal structure from the front, which was optimal. Surprisingly I could make out the Mamoswine still taking up guard. The large brown mound was now in a more natural resting position.

The great, green, handless lizard dropped from a tree next to me almost noiselessly, looking out at the Cornucopia without fear. He was just another wild Pokémon to whoever could be watching from afar (assuming we hadn't been followed, which had been the reptile's job to ensure). Greens squeaked as she noticed him for the first time, probably not having had a good look at him before now.

"When did you get a Sceptile?" She reached out and gently touched the healed-over stub of the lizard. He offered the limb for further inspection.

"Sceptile?" I hadn't even thought of what species it now was until she said it. It was nice to have a name in my head. "He saved me from some electric spiders and must have evolved in the process."

"Electric spiders?"

"Big yellow and blue things, and lots of little yellow things." She didn't respond. "I thought you were a whiz with Pokémon."

"Not with electric spiders."

"What about ghosts?"

"I think she is called a Mismagius. I would not let it out, they bring misery and bad luck."

"I'll keep that in mind."

We stood and watched the Cornucopia in silence. The sun moved higher in the sky, offering us less and less shade as we stood on the fringe of the woods. The Sceptile had returned to the trees, with Slink flitting off in the opposite direction. Occasionally I'd hear a little psychic buzz that meant he was still alive. But we were slowly beginning to die in the heat. The League Makers must be cranking up the temperature to flush us out. Our water supplies began to dwindle as we watched the now shimmering centerpiece. We'd have to move, but where? The river, as far as I knew, had run dry since the surf. The water was stagnant and filled with corpses. We could always go back for snow, but who knows how long it would last in this sun. Everyone would eventually do the same thing we were tempted to do: check the Cornucopia. I didn't know how the great ice-type could stand it, but he was sitting perfectly still in the heat of the day.

"Come on," I eventually spoke, "let's see if we're first."

"I am going to stay back."

I took a moment to process this. She wanted to hang back. She had a plan. I turned to face her slowly. We were mere inches from each other huddled behind one of the trees. She was filthy, drenched in sweat, and honestly looked very desperate. She clutched her Archeops' ball tightly in one hand and was trying to break the bones of my hand with the other. Figuratively, not literally. Or maybe literally? The heat was dizzying and anything was possible. I checked the water bag in the backpack at my feet for something to do. It was still empty.

"It's suicide to go it alone." I picked these words very, very carefully and said them in the slowest and most even tone I could. She locked eyes with me as I said them, and I felt a wave of guilt rush over me. I shouldn't have said it like that, I should have put a more tender inflection, given her some sort of inkling that maybe I wouldn't slaughter her the second I saw her again. Could I? I had to think about that. I couldn't right now, not with how she was looking at me.

She stood up, pulling on my hand to get me to follow her suit. I got to my feet clumsily and no sooner than I had gained my balance did she spring a kiss on me. I was pushed up against the tree behind me, hardly as tall as she was, and she forced her tongue in my mouth. Things connected in my head in ways I couldn't stand them to but I kissed her back anyways. I felt the bark press against my back as she pressed against me. I closed my eyes and tried to think of something else. I thought of my Cyndaquil. I thought of a dark night in the woods.

She finally pulled away. I opened my eyes and found hers. I doubt it was a very convincing kiss, but we were both young and otherwise stupid about romance and I had to hope she would buy it. I needed her to buy it. If I could cause her to hesitate at all when I saw her again it would be all I needed. I watched her eyes flick between mine. I wasn't paying attention to how my own face looked. Probably sweaty and pale. Probably awful. I had to sell it. I went in for another kiss and she met me half-way. Our teeth clicked together and we both reeled back.

"I wish this was not happening," she sniffed.

"Oh, come on, we're like fourteen," I joked, "we both suck at kissing."

We shared an awkward, quiet giggle. And for a second, we were both just two trainers who had bumped in to each other on a route. Slowly she backed away, holding on to my hand until the last possible second before letting my arm drop back to my side. She looked around as if she suddenly remembered where she was, then sprinted off back towards the snow line.

And like that, she was gone.

* * *

><p>The hike to the Cornucopia was long and miserable. Much unlike the quick and admittedly exhilarating retreats I had taken from it, the trips towards were always slow and terrifying affairs. I was completely exposed and getting closer to any sort of potential danger. Even my Pokémon were bereft of cover. The Sceptile crawled next to me, limping slightly with every other step, and Slink rested on my back and paid close attention to my rear. Even the Joltik (I knew her name as she zapped me until I got it right) was out, a fuzzy badge of pride opposite of the Rising Badge.<p>

As we approached we were hit by an absolutely unbearable stench. The Mamoswine was long dead, it seemed, and all that remained was its corpse. Thousands of flies were swarming the body and the tusks had melted in the heat long ago by the looks of it. I clutched my hatchet firmly in my right, the left resting over the Joltik on my chest. There was probably something eating the Mamoswine close by, and it didn't hurt to be too careful. At the same time, however, I felt like I needed to pay my respects.

As I got closer to the Mamoswine, however, I felt that something was wrong. I didn't notice what until I was about ten feet away from it when I saw a glimmer from one of its eye sockets. I froze in my tracks. Something was alive inside of the Mamoswine. The Sceptile next to me froze as well, getting as low to the ground as it could.

For a few seconds, no-one moved.

Suddenly, the Mamoswine reared up. Or, at least, appeared to. Out from underneath its snout shot a light green blur that was swiftly intercepted by my own green blur from one side. I turned to watch my lizard plow a Scyther in to the ground mere feet from me and felt an arrow glance off of my shoulder. Slink and I screamed at the same time and turned to face the corpse of the mammoth as we backpedaled. An arc of green energy tore up the earth in-between myself and the Mamoswine just before another arrow screamed passed me, this time missing by a long shot. I had to close the distance.

"Bug Buzz!" Slink crawled up on to my shoulder and flapped its wings as hard as it could. If I had known I wouldn't have asked him to do it, but all I could do was watch as what remained of one of his wings was shredded to bits as he generated a meager shockwave. It was enough, though, as the rotting flesh of the Mamoswine's face was pushed inwards over our unseen assailant. One of the fighting Pokémon next to us gave a cry as I pounced on the falling, blinded competitor. I tried to land with my knees in their midriff but the slimy flesh forced me to straddle whoever was underneath. I felt Slink hop off of my shoulder as whoever I had trapped reached up and tried to grab at me around their fleshy cocoon. They slipped on my shoulders as I readied my hatchet and brought it to bear. They found the wound and dug their fingers deep and I howled in pain.

I was rolled off to one side as the other tribute tried to stand up. The stench inside of the Mamoswine and the horrid stinging of the wound was enough to make anyone normal vomit, but I wasn't normal. And when the competitor got up on her knees I could tell she wasn't either. She was completely bald and shaking very hard. She tried to pull back the string on her bow but it slipped from her fingers and snapped hard against her forearm. She gasped and I launched myself at her, taking a wild swing with the hatchet. It flew from my fingers but slammed in to her bow, knocking it from her grasp and to the far side of the makeshift shelter.

We stared each other down for a good ten seconds. Neither of us moved. She had a knife at her hip, I could just make it out in the dim light. The sounds of the scuffle outside had died down. Someone out there had one, or at least was winning. Someone in here would have to do the same.

She went for her knife.

I went for her head.

In the end, all it took was one hard twist. My hand slipped off her chin, however. I didn't get the torque needed to kill her outright, but there was a very satisfying snap before she crumpled in to a heap on the ground. She didn't twitch like I thought she would. She was just slumped up against one side of the strange camouflage she had made. She wasn't moving, however. That's all that mattered.

I found my hatchet in the viscera. It was a disgusting mess inside of the Mamoswine, being just tall enough to walk in if I slouched a bit. It seemed to be skin held together by branches, poles, bent spears and whatever rope or string she could find. It was brilliant. Nobody had dared to disturb the Mamoswine, and from afar it looked as if it had been sleeping. And the ambush! I ripped a hole open in the side of the skin and looked outside. My big green lizard was happily gorging himself on the innards of the Scyther he had downed. I turned to face my own downed predator-turned-prey. She was comatose, hardly breathing through the snapped neck, but somehow still alive. Almost serene. She had obviously tried to shave herself with a sword at some point judging from the nicks on her skull, and she was much older than I was. She was smart, and strong, and didn't deserve the death I'd given her. To be reduced to a vegetable and then put out of her misery.

In the end, though, it had to be done. I knelt next to her, cradled her head in my lap, and wiped my hands off on my jeans. This time, I made sure I had a sturdy grip before twisting as hard as I could. Somewhere in the distance, the twentieth cannon fired.


	11. Nightfall

I bet you thought I was gone for good, huh?

Well, this ride's almost over, and thanks to some encouragement I was able to sit down and finish off one of the only long-term projects I've ever really cared for. It's been a hell of a ride and I hope you enjoy these last two chapters. No more waiting in vain for ages. I deeply apologize for all of those I left hanging for so long, but know that soon this will be a finished story, I promise.

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><p>The burning was absolutely unbearable. The more I moved, the worse the gash in my shoulder became. The Cornucopia turned out to have plenty of water, but it had been picked clean of healing supplies long ago. I managed to find a potion and had flushed out the wound as best I could, but the bald girl's digging fingers had pushed rotting flesh and whatever other horrid filth she was covered in deep into the wound. Deeper than I could stand to dig out. I was now on a timer.<p>

Knowing that, I had pushed the Mamoswine's hollow corpse a fair distance from the Cornucopia and sent the Sceptile after dry wood. Within minutes we had built a giant, stinking bonfire from old weapons, rotting skin, a few old Pokémon corpses and a few armfuls of wood. It wouldn't burn long, but it would burn strong. Thick black clouds of smoke billowed in to the still air. I wasn't sure who was left besides Greens, but they would be able to know exactly where I was. I was sure I stood a chance so long as I could still stand to use both arms, but the pain was growing worse and worse. The fire was a terrible idea if I was being completely honest. I ran the very high and very real risk of being slaughtered outright, but there was no time to be safe anymore.

Gears began turning in the back of my head. I was forgetting something, but what? I checked the sheath at my hip for my hatchet. It was still somewhat slick but none the worse for wear. My knife was likewise fine. Two Pokéballs and two Ultraballs were hanging from my bandolier and I had a bug on each shoulder. Slink's upper left wing had been obliterated by the arrow in the fight. Luckily my shoulder was hit before the wing, otherwise the slowly worsening infection would have been complicated by a slew of various toxins. The Butterfree, however, was very distraught and eerily quiet. I doubt that any technology could even recreate something as delicate as a Butterfree's wing even if I won, but I knew I had to try.

I sucked down another bottle of water. Between the fire and a slowly rising fever, I felt like I was going to melt. Maybe my plan would backfire. Maybe they would know to steer clear of me with the giant pyre. I wandered back in to the Cornucopia's open mouth and went over its contents again. Everything had been thoroughly gone over since our first scrounging so long ago. Suddenly, something clicked in my head: the box! I began to rummage for a small box that had been here that I had left before. I found it right where I had left it, tucked away in a corner, sitting on a large metal crate. I immediately snatched it up and popped open the lid.

Empty. Inside was nothing more than a black velvet-lined interior with an indent where something previously sat, perfectly round. Probably a Master Ball or something equally lucky for whoever had found it. But that apparently wasn't me. I gave one last look around and saw a black speck in one of the Cornucopia's metal support beams. On closer inspection, it looked like a tiny lens. I had almost forgotten that we were being watched by all of Kanto and Unova (and apparently Kalos could get us on pay-per-view). I glared in to it, thinking of what I could do or say. What was there to say? I had a slowly oncoming infection? They wouldn't send me any medicine. I needed to know where the other competitors were? Like they could tell me.

Could they?

"Silver," I addressed my mentor directly through the camera, "I don't think it's really fair for everyone else." How unbelievably cocky was I? "Could you level the playing field a bit?"

At that, I walked back towards the roaring fire and waited.

Not five minutes later did I see a silver parachute descend towards the tree line. I must have passed another competitor as I was coming back in. Either that, or they were luring me back to Greens. The Sceptile and I both took off like a rocket towards where it was falling. I didn't know who I would meet there, as I honestly didn't know who was left, but there was a very high chance it would be my previous partner. I wasn't sure if I was ready to strike her down so soon. Something stirred in my stomach as I tried to picture how it would happen. I would make it quick, like she asked. I knew how to snap a neck now and my hands were clean. Or possibly a knife straight to the heart, maybe not as fast but infinitely easier. How poetic, a knife in the heart.

As we ran the sun began to rapidly set, the Unovan anthem suddenly blaring as we approached the trees. It was hard to hear the 'ping' of the package over the fanfare, but my lizard friend could hear better than I could.

"Kill him!" We had no time to waste. I couldn't relish in this one. The lizard bolted off ahead of me, following his nose and leaping over some sort of sink hole or muddy pond. I followed suit, leaping on to a rock in the water hazard. Then another. Then a much softer rock, possibly just mossy, more likely some unseen monster of the arena who would probably kill me soon as look at me, but there was no time to think about it. My infected shoulder burned as I landed hard on the opposite shoulder on the bank. I was making sloppy decision after sloppy decision. A female face was plastered in the sky, the shorn head of the recently downed competitor. The anthem was drowned out by a monstrous roar. Whatever I had jumped on had woken up.

I chanced a look back at the results of my poor decision making and saw the monstrous, muddy, blue form of a Feraligatr behind me. I had time. They were slow until they got their bearings, or got too close. I scrambled to my feet and took off in to the trees, searching vainly for a good one to climb. No, I couldn't let myself be treed. I felt Slink try to pull me to my left. I obeyed, slipping to one side of a tree. A moment later I heard a splintering crunch. I didn't dare turn around. Slink hissed something in my ears that loosely translated to, "fire." I had no idea what he was talking about. He tugged on my right and guided me around another tree, which met a similar fate as the last one. I chanced a look backwards to see that the Feraligatr had slammed hard in to the tree mouth-first, snapping it like a twig.

With a pang of fear, I understood what the coming darkness would mean for me. Certain death.

"Fire," came the Butterfree again. I still didn't get it, but I didn't stop running. The Feraligatr was too close. The Joltik on my other shoulder scuttled on to my back and snapped off some electricity. I felt the shockwaves of the resulting bellow shake my core. Between the bug guiding me and the bug protecting me I was able to stay just out of the reptile's clutches, but I was tired. Everything ached. My shoulder was on fire.

Soon we plowed through the blackened crater we had passed on our way to the Cornucopia. All of the sudden, "fire" clicked. I tripped over the blackened stump of the tree and felt Slink jump from my shoulder as I landed hard on the open wound. For a split second I blacked out from the pain. When I came to I was screaming, my mind reeling, my back arching in a vain attempt to stop the damage that had already happened. I heard a roar, electric crackling, Slink crying in desperation. I saw a yellow streak leap from me. I finally regained some control and sat up to see the great monster pluck the small yellow tick from his chest. It twitched as electricity coursed through its dirty blue body, but it wasn't enough to stop the beast from throwing the Joltik away from it as hard as it could.

What happened next was absolutely spectacular: as the small yellow bug screamed through the air she was engulfed in a bright aura of energy. She swelled and spun, a much larger spider landing on a tree some fifty feet away, the light fading to reveal one of the large, electric spiders I had seen in the caves. It practically exploded from where it had landed and cleared the distance between herself and my agressor with ease. The Feraligatr was ready however and attempted to swat the bug away, but she clung fast to its arm and unleashed a fresh torrent of electricity through a silky trail as she scuttled on to its back.

I took this as my opportunity to bolt again. I had no idea how long the freshly evolved spider would last, but I knew now where I was going now. I scooped up Slink as I passed and held him tight to my chest, what remained of his wings out in front of me. He really wasn't in great shape at all, especially after his last tumble. I was in a similar state, slower now, still very much scrambled from the fall, but the fading angry noises from behind me were a good sign. I could think now, plan, remember. The tree, the tree filled with the miserably touchy little bagworms. The light was nearly gone but I knew I was very close.

When the Feraligatr found me, I was on the other side of the tree. He held up the assumed carcass of the poor spider, unmoving but faintly glowing, and threw it off in to the woods. Now it was too dark to see anything besides his glowing, orange eyes. The anthem and deceased tributes had long since faded, and the moon was either behind clouds or had been remove by the League Makers for effect. There was no light, and no sound besides my own panicked breathing.

A single canon blast cut the tension

The Feraligatr's eyes widened in the dark before lowering to the ground and accelerating towards me with a bloodcurdling howl of anguish and fury. As it passed the tree it must have lashed out in its rage, because the light was suddenly blinding and the noise absolutely deafening. I turned and tried to run but it was too little too late. I was thrown on to my front as a shockwave washed over me. The collective force of several dozen Pineco had unleashed their wrath on the reptile. The heat was strong and the shockwave was brutal. I was pressed nearly flat to the ground and felt something pop underneath me. With my luck, it was probably a rib.

Suddenly, a tree far to my left exploded as well. And another to my front. All around me the forest was suddenly going up in smoke as more of the Pineco-riddled trees were set off. But why now? Why not when the first one had gone however many days ago? I released Slink to push myself to my feet and he collapsed to the ground, a string of slime stretching between his abdomen and my chest. I saw his mandibles working frantically but the ringing in my ears kept anything from getting through besides the dull thumps of the spreading Pineco trees' destruction. I looked at him thoroughly. His lone antenna was now bent, his remaining wings pressed against the ground and badly torn, and I realized what had popped beneath me earlier: his small, soft body was split and his insides were oozing out.

His antenna twitched as he pointed behind me, one last gesture before he collapsed from his injuries. I pulled the hatchet from my hip and span around, swinging in a large, wild arc and catching something, but only barely. The Feraligatr, badly burned and missing an arm, had caught the biting edge of my axe with its snout. In the slowly growing light of the forest fire I could see he was confused and terrifired.

"Leave him alone!" I could barely hear the words come out of my mouth as I pressed my advantage on the reptile. It gave a weak but furious roar and took another swing, but I caught his remaining hand with my axe and parted a few claws from his hand. It turned to run but was cut off by something I couldn't see from around it. The tip of a glowing green blade erupted squarely from the back of the Feraligatr. My hatchet came down hard on the base of its skull and it finally slumped to the ground, dead. Behind him stood the Sceptile. He drew his damaged arm from the corpse of the great lizard, the green blade having manifested from the stump of his claw. His mouth was bloody but thankfully it wasn't his own. He nodded towards where Slink lay and I turned back to face him.

Over him stood a trainer with his foot on the bug's head. "It's only fair," he called, "you killed mine." He stomped down. Hard.


	12. The Long-Lived Child

The trainer ground his heel in to the Butterfree's corpse, slow and purposeful. In one hand he held a improvised spear, a knife tied around the end of a sturdy stick. In the other was a net woven from a mix of braided strips of bark and salvaged rope. He was very tall; if he wasn't at the age limit he was close to it. He was painted in mud, leaves, and moss, his head cloaked in a hood made from a tarp and similarly decorated. Between my short stature and his spear I would never get close enough to do what I so deeply desired to do to him. Loathing wasn't a strong enough word, nor malice or hatred or any form of anger. I was quiet. It was like a flame had been snuffed out inside of me. All desire, all hope, was gone, replaced by a terrifyingly quiet but brilliantly strong rage.

"How many have you killed," he asked as he jammed his spear in to the ground and dropped his net. The Sceptile crouched to strike but I threw out an arm to stop him. The trainer had grabbed his spear again, but was similarly frozen by my movement.

"_What_?" I couldn't believe he wanted to make small-talk. He slowly began to move again, releasing the spear shaft and stripping himself of the tarp. It landed with a heavy thud, revealing dark skin, a lithe but well-built form, and a collection of scalps around his waist. His hair was short, black and greasy.

"I killed five of the six who died in the bloodbath," he undid his belt and pulled out the morbid collection, the many shades hardly distinguishable in the firelight of the forest around us. "And, two more during a thunderstorm on the far side of the arena." He threw the belt of trophies on to the tarp. I dropped my hatchet, slid the backpack off of my shoulders and swept the balls from my bandolier inside of it, tossing it to my side as well.

"So," he asked again, "how many?" He yanked his spear from the ground and picked up his net. I picked the hatchet up from the ground, white-knuckling it in my better hand. We slowly began to circle each other. I allowed myself to remember. The fire inside of me flickered back to life.

"Zarroma," I spoke. He looked stunned for a moment, but just for a moment. "After the bloodbath. We came back to the Cornucopia and he _thought_ got the jump on us."

"You and the Pikachu girl?"

"Yeah."

"You did not kill her?"

"Too easy," I smirked, "I like a challenge. The bloodbath must have been easy, right?" He gave a derisive laugh.

"I got the Kanto tributes, too," he spoke, "an ambush."

"Oh, really," I growled, "tell me how you did it."

"They were on the side of the cliff and I pushed them all over," he held up his spear lengthwise and gave it a thrust outwards, "they were foolish to walk together."

"Liar!" I lunged and swung at his spear. The wood snapped like a matchstick. He reeled back and dropped the dull end of the spear as he threw the net. As I braced for the trap he bolted in to the still safe trees behind him. The net was large and weighted with rocks, knocking me backwards on to the ground. The Sceptile was at my aid immediately, using the green blade-hand to cut me free from my bindings. I pulled the balls from my bag and replaced them on my bandolier. Something climbed on to my back, yellow legs with blue tips hooking around each arm.

"Galvaa," the spider whimpered. Miraculously it was alive, which was good. I would need every bit of help I could get. I righted myself, hitched the spider up higher on my back, avoided looking at the corpse of my old friend and began to follow where the tribute had ran. I couldn't run like he could: I was too tired and weighted down by the spider. To be honest I was surprised I could move at all, let alone jog.

"Follow him, but don't kill him," I ordered to the Sceptile, "he's mine. Just keep him headed towards the canyon." At that, the Sceptile was gone. I made my way through the trees, trying to keep where I thought the canyon was to the front of me and the forest fire behind me. I had to watch my feet often, stepping over roots and what looked like tripwires while the spider took up watching the trees. I assumed that all of the Pineco had gone off, but I couldn't be sure.

As the fire grew further away it was much easier to hear. Soon I could make out the crunching of branches and swearing ahead of me. I picked up my pace and cupped my hands over my mouth.

"_I_ killed the Kanto tributes," I howled, "one of them ran in to my axe and the other ran in to my reptilian friend. Just like I ran in to yours!" I heard the Sceptile hiss and a tree splinter not far ahead of me. "I killed the last one while she was running in the woods, just like this!"

I rounded another tree and saw the back of the trainer as he bolted towards the cliff. Perfect. I plodded along close behind, suddenly very aware of the gash on my shoulder. A wave of nausea hit me and I had to double over a rock and puke. The pain and the fever were working together to slowly warp my vision. I stumbled towards the edge of the woods to see the man scrambling along the side of the cliff. The Sceptile leapt from the trees and slid to a halt in front of him, the vivid blade at the ready. He doubled back and found me. I must have been a sight: vomit dribbling from my chin, a spider on my back, and an axe in my hand. The cliff suddenly seemed huge, the canyon daunting. I stumbled towards the trees again but pressed onwards.

"I killed more," I continued, pulling the ghost's ball from my bandolier, "I killed one of my own region's tributes, let him drown in the river." The man was terrified, holding up the shortened spear in both hands, alternating between myself and the Sceptile as we both approached him. "Matter of fact, I killed _both_ of my region's tributes. I strung her up and cleaved her head in two. I snapped a woman's neck at the Cornucopia. I botched it that time, she died very, very slowly." I laughed. The man was focused on me, maybe five feet away now.

"Please!" He began to beg and blubber, swinging the knife on the end of the stick in wide arcs. "Please, no, please don't, please!" I took another step towards him. He looked in to the woods and I swatted again at the spear shaft with my hatchet, this time catching it on the blade and yanking it from his hands. Again the man bolted in to the woods. I whipped the ghost's ball after him, yanked the spear from my axe and covered my ears. The Sceptile followed suit by tucking his head under one arm. Through my fingers I could hear a loud, painful wail. "Kill him and be free!" I screamed. I had no idea if the ghost would listen, but the man was flushed back out behind the Sceptile not a moment later. I climbed on to the lizard's back before we took off after him.

We were mere feet from him when the Sceptile slid over the edge, clinging fast to the side of the canyon with three of his limbs. I quickly hooked my arms around the fourth injured one and he pressed his upper and lower arm together to hold me tight. We bolted much further along the cliff side than I expected, but the Sceptile righted himself and dug in with his back claws before pushing me up over the edge. The man skidded to a halt several feet in front of me, nearly falling in to the canyon himself. But now there were no trees to pin him to the cliff's edge. My reptilian ally reappeared ten feet behind him.

"You are hurt," he gestured to my shoulder with the much shorter spear, panting hard, "you are hurt and there is no more medicine!"

"You're pinned," I nodded towards the Sceptile, "run and you die."

"There is still one more! I saw her in the woods! You will never find her!" I felt my heart leap in to my throat. Greens was still alive. As much as I would hate a slow death from infection, I could find solace in her winning. Well, maybe not solace. I would be relieved? No. At peace? I would at least…

No. It made me furious. I had come so far, and what had she done? I had killed so many and sacrificed so much, but all she did was hide and ham things up for the camera. The fire roared in me as I readied my axe. The man raised his spear and swiped at me, but missed.

"The fire will flush her out," I yelled, circling to put the man's back towards the canyon. I almost ran in to a stump. A somewhat familiar, somewhat freshly cut stump. A plan began to form in my mind as I buried the axe into the wood. "Rope," I muttered to the spider on my back, holding out a hand. The spider spit an incredibly strong, thick thread in to my hands and I began to pull loops of it around my elbow and palm.

"What are you doing?" I ignored him, gathering as much thread as I thought I could and tying one end around the stump. The spider snipped the other end off and I tied it in to a lasso. It was light and strong, not sticky in the slightest. Perfect.

"Bullshit," the man barked as I began to spin the loop around my head with my good arm. He charged me with the spear. I threw the loop and dodged, yanking hard on the rope. It caught around the man's chin and yanked him to his back. He began to panic, scrabbling at the silken loop around his neck as I hauled him towards the edge.

"You know," I called with a tug as the man tried to turn himself over, "I was just gonna haul you over to that log and-" another pull, the man gasped through the rope constricting his throat, "and behead you nice and quick." The Sceptile swung around and slapped the man with his bushy tail, sending him skidding right over the edge. He grabbed the lip of the canyon just in time and pulled one arm over. As his head rose over the side, I placed my foot on top of his skull. The smile on my face must have been manic. This was the perfect scenario, the best thing I could have asked for. I stood there, the slack looped in my hand, and relished in the moment.

Absolute poetic justice.

The man began to laugh, long and loud. I didn't care. He could have the last laugh of his life if he wanted it. He had robbed me of my one true friend left in this world and I was about to have the best closure I could ask for. I was going to take his life. Stomp on his head and watch him die.

His other hand snapped up and grabbed the leg of my pants. I felt the psychotic elation fade, in its place absolute terror flooded in. I shouldn't have let him laugh.

"We go together, friend!" He released his arm from the side of the canyon and yanked me down over the edge of the cliff with him. As I fell I grabbed hard on the loops of slack rope and I only fell a few feet, the loops of slack coiling tight around my palm. The man laughed for the rest of his short journey and suddenly the loops were pulled tight around my hand. Before I even acknowledged it the rope was taught. I whipped my other arm around, my 'bad' one, to grab the rope before I plummeted in to the abyss. I grabbed and slid down a yard or so of bloody rope before a fresh strand of silk was slung towards the cliff face. The spider's legs and strange mandibles dug in to me as the silk splattered against the side of the canyon. It caught and we swung inwards towards the rocks, landing with much less of a thump than the alternative.

I didn't want to look down at what had just happened to my 'good' hand but it certainly wasn't holding anything anymore. When the man had hit the end of his rope, the force of it must have severed my hand right where the loops had coiled: the middle of my palm. I could only imagine my fingers spiraling in to the abyss along with the corpse of the third place tribute. A cannon jarred me back to reality and I looked up at how far away I was from the lip of the canyon. It was hard to make out in the dark, but I couldn't have been more than ten feet away. Had I both hands, it would be child's play. With one arm aching and the other hand totaled, it was near impossible.

"Listen," I called to the spider as I wrapped my bad arm around the new silken rope several times, "hit the edge and drag us up. Can you do that? Can you reel in silk?" In response came another 'thwip' as a new rope was shot up over the lip, landing in a large sticky web. Apparently a proper spider's silk supply, even when weak, far exceeded that of a leftover move of a Butterfree. She slowly began to reel us in… but what then? And where was the Sceptile? In the distance, I thought I could hear screeching…

As if to signal my triumph the sun began to rise behind me. I let go of the old strand a few seconds later and reached for the lip of the canyon. My fingers found purchase and the spider scrambled up my arm, spitting fresh web squarely on my back as she went. She disappeared over the edge and began to haul me up. As I looked over the edge and back at the Cornucopia I saw exactly where my Sceptile was. In the low dawn light I saw his glowing blade strike down a familiar, snake-like bird. The serpentine head flew through the air, still writhing, as a girl's scream rang out.

I crawled forwards on my hand and knees, trying to distance myself from the edge. I looked up again to see the Sceptile skewering the downed corpse, as if beheading wasn't enough. I could see he was bloodied in the growing light and missing his tail. A fair distance from him was the one person I did not expect to see. My lizard hissed and spat in rage, whirling on the girl with blade drawn. She tried to backpedal, tripped, fell on her rear. The blade came up.

"_No_!" The blade froze in the air. Greens looked over at me with her pale, tear-streaked face. I had shot out what was left of my hand and was slowly becoming aware of the pain from the bloody, dripping stump. I gritted my teeth as I put the pressure on my infected shoulder to push myself to my feet. She practically rushed to hers. Her hurried walk was harried by a limp. My strides were surprisingly even, given the circumstances. I had to stop at the stump and ease myself on to it. The handle of the axe pressed in to my lower back. My final gambit. I saw her hurry to hide one of her hands behind her back, probably holding a knife. I leaned on the bloody stump and wrapped my other hand around my own back.

Greens stopped maybe five feet away. I saw the lizard looming behind her, the blade still glowing its violent green. I waved him off with the stump of a hand, my thump giving an uncontrollable twitch as I did. I simply looked at her. She was much different than when I first met her. The tribute held most of her weight on one foot and her face, once only dirty, was scraped and slowly scabbing. She was undeniably in better shape than I was. I watched her eyes flick from my mangled hand to my own eyes.

"Hisako," she spoke after a moment.

I blinked. A faint memory came back to me. "That's right," I replied, "we were gonna-" I shifted my weight, gasped in pain, and freed the axe in one movement, "we were gonna tell each other our names." I saw a smile flicker on her face for a moment as she nodded.

"Our real names. I'm Hisako." She took a few steps forwards. I rose from the stump and was suddenly very woozy. I tried to act like I was holding my back, but I'm sure she knew I was hiding a weapon now as well.

"What's your name?" She began to close the distance with slow steps. From behind her back she revealed a large, sharp knife. Anyone else would have backpedaled in to the canyon, but I didn't think she had the guts. She hesitated, about a foot away. She could slice my throat in an instant.

Instead she embraced me. I pressed my cheek to hers but didn't dare return the full embrace. I felt the knife flat against my back. I knew what she wanted. She wanted this to all be some terrible dream. It was what we all had wanted, and at that moment I, too, wanted to just wake up. To wake up out in the depths of the Johto wilderness, wrapped in a sleeping bag with my team around me. I wanted Slink to be there, nibbling on my ear to wake me up. I wanted to challenge the league and become a champion and never, ever kill another person.

"Copper," I whispered in to her ear.

A knife slid in to my lower back. Not my spine, which would have been effective, or up in to my heart, which would have been quick, but my kidney. Or where I thought my kidney was. All of the idyllic dreams of a non-murderous life scenario were gone. She tried to reel away but I was already whipping around the hatchet as hard as I could. The aim was haphazard but I surprisingly clipped the nape of her neck. She collapsed to the ground, grabbing frantically at her throat, gasping for air. I came back around, this time with the blunt side of the small axe. It connected with the crown of her head as I, too, collapsed to my knees. I heard the thunderous roar of some large machine in the distance and looked up to see the strange Unovan flying machines approaching us.

I looked back to Hisako and saw her collapsed form, out cold in a slowly growing pool of her own blood. The Sceptile lowered a green blade over her throat and drew it back swiftly.

A cannon fired. I had won.


	13. Epilogue

It took me three years to realize that the Reaping would never get easier. I stood there and watched as the people I knew as friends trained and grew in the shadow of fear. It didn't take long at all for me to send someone I actually knew to their death. My little brother wasn't nearly the killer I was, but I did everything I could. I helped him get over the idea of morals, showed him how to hold and strike with a weapon, taught him everything I could about his Pokémon.

His throat was slit thirty seconds in to the blood bath.

That was two years ago. If I thought my parents hated me after I returned home from my games, then their reaction when I returned from his was pure loathing. They never struck me. They only ever raised their voice, or stood up from their chairs back then. When I returned from the 36th Hunger League, however, my father met me at the door. He had a knife behind his back. The memory was all-too familiar.

I broke his wrist when he tried to kill me. I never went back to Johto voluntarily after that.

Silver and I took turns mentoring. Sometimes he would volunteer, seeing some sort of spark, making some weird joke. We made bets. We drank. It was a way to kill time.

It took five years and a fleet of psychiatrists to clear me to manage my own affairs. It was nice to be free to train. I took to Unova like a fly to shit. I swept their gym circuit with ease. When I met Drayden I forfeited. I actually forfeited. They were too easy. Everything was just a game compared to the League. My pokémon were vicious, my own cunning unmatched. I destroyed tournaments and competitions. The Pokémon World Tournament was the only time where I ever felt a challenge, and I realized why immediately.

The World Tournament was basically where all of the previous Hunger League Champions went to die. On my first day I was matched against none other than Red himself. I had never been so thoroughly trounced in my life. He was every bit as ruthless as I was and had years of experience to boot. He looked at me like I was a nobody when he won. It felt _great_.

I mourned minimally for the loss of Greens. Or, what was her name, Hoko… Hikan… Arceus, I can't remember. It must be bizarre to hear that from me. I mean, it looked like she was so important to me in the League. That was the point. But when she stabbed me in the back she must have cut some stronger ties than just skin and flesh.

Anyways, that's it. That's everything I remember about the 35th Annual Hunger League. I appreciate your interest, but I have to go. Don't you have some Semicentennial games or something to prepare for? I appreciate what you're doing, but seriously, fuck off.

Any regrets? Do I look like the kind of person who has regrets anymore? When you get too many they start to not mean so much anymore. Ferris had it coming. Greens definitely had it coming. I don't regret any of it.

… You know what, I take it back. I do regret _one_ thing: I'll never know what was in that fucking box.


End file.
